Glossary
This is the complete explanation of every term used across Nephele Workshop's documentation and product. While reading the docs, any word with an underline can be hovered to see a brief explanation, or clicked to jump to its corresponding entry on this page.
Nephele
nepheleThe virtual character of Nephele Workshop — the app's persona. She runs the Workshop and helps you get things done through conversation.
Nephele Workshop
workshopA desktop workstation for artists: software you install on your own computer, offering AI chat, browser automation, and local asset management.
Agent
agentThe Agent is Nephele's core capability. Unlike an ordinary chatbot, it actually operates your computer: opening browsers to search for images, organizing Eagle assets, batch-packing work, running Python scripts. It reads your intent through the Skill system, then picks the right tools out of its toolbox to get the job done. Tools are fetched on demand — each turn carries only the few that matter and pulls the rest when needed, so sixty-odd tools never clog the works.
Rule Engine
rule-engineThe local zero-latency intent parser. Clear commands like 'open Photoshop' or 'open the Downloads folder' skip the AI entirely — the Rule Engine executes them directly, near-instantly, at no cost.
Full Agent (Cloud Tier)
cloud-maxThe full Agent is driven by a model tier you pick in the main input box (like choosing a model in ChatGPT): Axioma Zephyr (fast, billed at half rate) by default, or Axioma Tempest (full-power, full rate). Both have a 1M-token context, both run a ReAct loop (reason → call tool → observe → reason again) with up to 20 tool calls per message, and both are billed in Nepheline. A local 0ms rule engine still handles explicit commands, and a separate free '?' Guide channel absorbs light 'how do I use this' questions.
Guide Channel
guideThe Guide channel surfaces as the '?' popover in the top-right toolbar: a deterministic chip flow (purely local, no LLM, copy sourced from flows.yaml) plus free-form input (streamed answers aware of which screen you're on). When it can't answer or you want to go deeper, it 'escalates' to the full Agent (Tempest tier, asking you to confirm first) carrying your exact words. It's biased toward passing through and fails open — it will never block your input. It never generates UI operations, only returns structured whitelisted actions.
Axioma
axiomaNephele's cloud AI inference service. The full Agent offers two tiers: Axioma Zephyr (fast, half rate) / Axioma Tempest (full-power, full rate), both with a 1M-token context; the free '?' Guide channel runs on a separate lightweight lite model.
Skill
skillSkills are Nephele's secret weapon. The same prompt to different AIs yields wildly different results. Nephele's edge isn't a smarter model — it's Skills. A Skill is a plain text file describing in natural language 'when the user says X, here's what you should do'. It's not a plugin, needs no installation, and requires no code. Skills load from three sources: cloud push, user custom, and built-in.
Tool
toolAtomic function units the Agent can invoke, such as eagle_search, pack_image, evaluate_image — 60+ in total, loaded dynamically on demand.
ToolRegistry
tool-registryNephele's tool registry singleton managing all Agent-available tools, supporting dynamic registration and remote disabling.
ReAct Loop
react-loopThe Agent's core working pattern (Reasoning + Acting): reason, call a tool, observe the result, reason about the next step, and repeat until done. Up to 20 tool calls per message.
Stamina
staminaFatigue points — the test-period daily free quota, refreshing every day at midnight (Beijing time) for trying cloud features. The system always deducts stamina first, touching Nepheline only once it runs out.
Nepheline
nephelineNepheline is Nephele's only paid currency, used for all cloud AI inference (the full Agent, Creative Review, StyleDNA, etc.). An annual update pass / license purchase bundles 50,000 Nepheline; purchased and bundled Nepheline share one pool, never expire, and have no cap. When the license lapses, only cloud AI features are disabled — your Nepheline isn't wiped and is restored on renewal. Deduction order is fixed: daily stamina → bundled Nepheline → purchased balance. Running out only pauses cloud AI; local features are unaffected. Light questions absorbed by the Guide channel are never billed.
Style DNA
style-dnaStyleDNA scores your art via a cloud vision model across 5 bipolar dimensions (line/palette, realistic/stylized, minimal/maximal, vivid/unsaturated, narrative/atmospheric), encoded into a 5-letter code mapped to one of 32 style types — a personalized artist identity card.
Creative Review
evaluatorDynamically adjusts evaluation dimensions by artwork type, giving a ten-tier S→E grade (S / S- / A+ / A / B+ / B / C+ / C / D / E) and improvement suggestions across composition, color, technique, and more.
Watermark & Credit
packerOne-click export of watermarked high-res PNGs. It can watermark the whole image, and can also apply an invisible watermark you can extract later to verify. PSD files can be processed directly.
Invisible Watermark
watermarkBakes copyright information into the image itself — invisible to the eye, but Nephele can pull it back out to verify. It usually survives compression, resizing and cropping. Built on an open-source blind-watermark algorithm.
Digital Certification
certificationDigital Certification gives a work an independently verifiable "birth certificate". Three steps: compute a unique fingerprint (hash) of the file, send that fingerprint to an independent timestamp authority to be stamped, and produce a QR-coded PDF report. In batch mode every file is bound to the others, so changing any one of them shows up. Verification relies only on public standards and third-party authorities, not Nephele's servers — even if Nephele shuts down, the evidence you issued stays verifiable by courts and third parties.
Evidence Capture
evidenceOn detecting infringement: auto-screenshots the full webpage, saves its original content, extracts the images, and records the site's identity credentials — all timestamped into an evidence package that can't be altered after the fact.
.nep Evidence Package
nep-fileThe evidence file produced by Evidence Capture. It bundles the page screenshots, the page's original content, the site's identity credentials, and the access log — all timestamped. Independently verifiable at verify.arisfusion.com without relying on Nephele's servers.
Reverse Image Search
reverse-searchUpload an image and several image-search engines look for its source at once: SauceNAO, IqDB, Google Cloud Vision, Baidu Image Search, plus matching against your local Eagle library and an exact check across Booru galleries.
Find Similar
find-similarFinds images that look like the one you picked, inside your local Eagle library. It compares the "what this image looks like" notes the tagger already recorded, then ranks by how many tags they share. Fully local, no network.
Perceptual Hash
phashCompresses an image's content into a fingerprint that survives resizing, compression, and small edits — two images that look alike come out with similar fingerprints. Computed on your own machine. Nephele uses it to compare images and trace stolen work.
Find References
find-referencesGet reference images via Agent chat or manual search across Pixiv, Konachan, Pinterest, Huaban, ArtStation, Wikimedia Commons, and your local Eagle library (Eagle-only by default; network sources are opt-in).
Eagle
eagleEagle is an asset management app commonly used by artists and designers — an enhanced folder built specifically for collecting and finding images. Nephele works with an Eagle library directly: it reads and writes the files that make up the library, so it doesn't matter whether Eagle itself is running.
An image-saving and mood-board site that artists use to collect colour, composition and mood references. It is one of the default sources in Nephele's reference search — it runs through your own browser (Wisp must be online), and Chinese queries are translated into English keywords first.
Xiaohongshu
xiaohongshuA Chinese image-and-text social platform where artists post work and gather inspiration. In Nephele it serves two roles: a publishing target (the copy is still generated for you, and Wisp delivers it inside your logged-in browser) and one of the sites reference search can reach.
Pixiv
pixivJapan's largest illustration-posting community, where artists publish work and follow each other. It is one of the default sources in Nephele's reference search and runs through a cloud node — no browser needed — and it is also one of the publishing targets.
ArtStation
artstationA portfolio site for game and film concept art, strong on polished commercial work. One of the default sources in Nephele's reference search, collected through Wisp with your own login — and one of the publishing targets.
Huaban
huabanA Chinese image-saving and mood-board site, close in shape to Pinterest. One of Nephele's reference sources, collected through Wisp with your own login; whole boards can also be imported into your library in one go.
A Chinese microblogging platform where artists post work and day-to-day updates. In Nephele it is one of the publishing targets: the copy is still generated for you, and Wisp delivers it inside your logged-in browser.
Bilibili
bilibiliA Chinese video platform where artists post process videos, tutorials and livestreams. One of the publishing targets in Nephele, delivered by Wisp inside your logged-in browser.
Douyin
douyinA Chinese short-video platform (the mainland counterpart of TikTok). One of the publishing targets in Nephele, delivered by Wisp inside your logged-in browser.
A mainstream social platform where artists post work and reach peers overseas. One of the publishing targets in Nephele, delivered by Wisp inside your logged-in browser.
An image-first social platform, built around square and portrait formats. The share image the style analysis produces (1080 × 1350, 4:5) is sized for it.
Konachan
konachanAn anime imageboard and one of the optional sources in reference search. Like Pixiv it runs through the cloud — it works out of the box and needs no login.
Wikimedia Commons
wikimediaThe Wikimedia Foundation's free-licence media library and one of the reference sources, queried through the cloud. Most of it is free to reuse, which makes it a good place for object, historical and scientific references.
Resource Library
libraryNephele's built-in file browser docked at the bottom of the window, unifying local files and Eagle asset browsing.
Library Indexing
indexingLibrary indexing runs on your own computer. One pass does two things: **look at every image and tag it** (by default with PixAI Tagger v0.9 — a ~1.2 GB model, character vocabulary through 2025-01 — or the older WD SwinV2 v3 if that isn't installed), and **remember what each image looks like**, which is what Find Similar compares against. You can also search by description in Chinese: "blue-toned girl" turns up matching images even when their tags are English. English tags are replaced with their Chinese display names and written onto the Eagle element (English stays only where there is no translation). Everything runs locally — no network, no billing, no Nepheline cost.
Semantic Search
semantic-searchCross-language search over your library. gte-multilingual-base (768-dim) encodes tags and your query into one semantic space, so a Chinese query like 'cyberpunk rainy night' still matches images tagged in English Danbooru tags. It searches tag text, then filters to tags that actually exist in your library.
PixAI Tagger
wd14The default model that tags image content (pixai-tagger-v0.9, ~1.2 GB, character vocabulary through 2025-01), running on your own computer. While tagging it also notes what each image looks like, for Find Similar to use later. Without it installed, the older WD SwinV2 v3 steps in (~467 MB, vocabulary through 2024-02).
CLIP
clipAn image-understanding model from OpenAI. Nephele uses it for two things: judging which art style a work belongs to, and **finding images in your local library by describing them in words**. Since 2026-06 Find Similar uses the tagging model's image features instead and no longer goes through CLIP.
ONNX Runtime
onnxAn engine for running AI models on your own computer (open-sourced by Microsoft). It's what lets Nephele run tagging and image-search models locally, with no network needed. With a dedicated graphics card it uses that for speed; without one it falls back to the processor — slower, but it still works.
Reference Board
moodboardA topmost borderless window where you pin reference images and freely arrange, zoom, and rotate them. Lock mode makes it mouse-transparent so it doesn't block your canvas. Supports composition overlays, arrow annotations, and .pur file interop.
Astrolabe
astrolabeDouble-press Ctrl or a mouse side button to summon a dual-ring radial menu arranged by artist workflow for instant access to any feature.
Color Picker
color-pickerA full-screen eyedropper: press the hotkey (default Ctrl+Shift+I) and click anywhere on screen to copy a color code; it also tries to set the brush color when a painting-app link is ready.
Hue
hueThe color family or direction, such as red, yellow, or blue; moving around Color Assistant's wheel changes hue.
Saturation
saturationHow far a color is from gray at the same lightness. On Color Assistant's wheel the center is nearly gray and the edge is more vivid; the scale is relative to the strongest displayable color at that hue and lightness.
Lightness
lightnessHow light or dark a color appears. Color Assistant's vertical slider controls OKHSL perceptual lightness, which is not the same quantity as HSV's V or the output of any one grayscale filter.
OKHSL
okhslAn Oklab-based color-picking model that arranges hue, relative saturation, and perceptual lightness in a circular wheel. Hue changes at fixed lightness are more visually stable than in traditional HSL or HSV.
Gamut mask
gamut-maskA polygon over a color wheel marking the range of colors planned for a painting. Color Assistant uses it as a visual guide and does not block colors outside the shape.
sRGB
srgbA common digital-image color space defining what RGB values mean. Color Assistant's OKHSL wheel targets sRGB; samples from a reference image with an ICC profile are converted to sRGB first.
HEX color code
hex-colorA #RRGGBB color value; each pair of hexadecimal digits represents the red, green, or blue channel. For example, #FF0000 is pure red.
Value check
value-checkA temporary grayscale view for judging the relationship between lights, midtones, and darks. Color Assistant offers Standard, Desaturate, and Perceptual algorithms, which may produce different results.
Nephele Aura
auraMobile extension. Browse your Eagle library remotely, subscribe to artist updates, and chat with the assistant. Two modes: cloud-direct (works anywhere — Q&A / search / references) and MAX mode (requires your desktop online, remotely driving the desktop's full Agent (cloud tier) with local-library access and tools).
Nephele Wisp
wispChrome/Edge browser extension for login-walled reference collection and creator data-warehouse collection. Your login sessions stay in your own browser.
Creator Dashboard
dashboardAggregates your publish records, views, saves, and engagement across social platforms into a local data warehouse, paired with an Eagle-library portrait — so you no longer depend on each platform's scattered backend.
AI Credential Check
validatorScans image EXIF, IPTC, and generation-parameter fingerprints to detect signatures from Midjourney, ComfyUI, NovelAI, and more.
C2PA Content Credentials
c2paAn open standard (Content Credentials) recording an image's provenance and edit history. AI Credential Check reads an image's C2PA manifest to tell whether it was AI-generated or processed by specific tools.
RFC 3161
rfc-3161The internet timestamp protocol international standard. Nephele's digital certifications are backed by authorities like DigiCert.
Time Stamping Authority (TSA)
tsaThe third-party authority that issues trusted timestamps. Nephele's certification **sends it only the file's unique fingerprint** (to FreeTSA, DigiCert, IdenTrust and the like) — your original never leaves your computer, and verifying doesn't depend on Nephele's servers.
Merkle Tree
merkleA way of binding many files together: each file's fingerprint is combined layer by layer into a "tree", so changing any one file makes the whole tree stop matching — you can't quietly swap one out.
bsdiff
bsdiffHow incremental updates work: download only the part that actually changed rather than the whole installer, so an update is usually a fraction of the original size.
Pilot
pilotAn automation framework: it drives the app with a real mouse and keyboard, reads the state of the interface, and records video at the same time. One script serves testing, tutorials, and marketing footage.
Kill Switch
kill-switchRemote emergency shutdown: Nephele can push an instruction that stops one specific version of the app from running, for security or compliance.
Architect
architectWhat Nephele calls its users. In Nephele's worldview, those who come to the Workshop to create are "Architects" — you lead the design and planning while the Agent does the heavy lifting, rather than laying every brick yourself.
Copyright Tracing
copyright-tracingA protection mode in Watermark & Credit: embed an invisible watermark into a work, then later extract it from a suspect image to verify whether it leaked from you and trace the repost chain. Usually survives light compression, resizing, and cropping.
Sub-Agent
sub-agentWhen the full Agent tackles a complex task, it can split it via delegate_tasks into multiple Sub-Agents running in parallel (up to 6, each with a 120s timeout, cloud-tier only). A Sub-Agent can't delegate further (preventing infinite recursion), used to speed up parallelizable subtasks.
Growth Review
growth-reviewThe default lens of Creative Review, focused on long-term growth rather than a single score: it gives concrete improvement suggestions and deliberately keeps you from fixating on an absolute number.
Commercial Evaluation
commercial-evaluationThe numbers-driven lens in Creative Review: a gamified ten-tier letter grade, a dimension radar, and market price references. Benchmarked against the global spectrum of practitioners, so the bar is deliberately strict.
Lightbox
lightboxThe full-screen preview you enter by double-clicking any image in the Resource Library: view the full image, zoom into details with the wheel anchored at the cursor, and step between images without leaving your browsing flow.
Device Fingerprint
device-fingerprintAn identifier used for device binding (the 2-device limit and theft detection). It's derived from a few stable system fields — **not your real hardware ID**. Nephele doesn't collect your network card address, CPU ID, disk or motherboard serials, and our server stores only the derived identifier itself.
AIGC Label (GB 45438-2025)
aigc-labelThe AIGC label block that domestic AI services embed in files under China's national standard GB 45438-2025. AI Credential Check reads this structured field and maps the producer code to a readable name, treating it as a strong signal that the content is AI-generated.
3D Preview
3d-previewDrop a PMX model file into Nephele and a standalone 3D preview window opens — mouse rotate/zoom/pan, a three-viewport mode, and lighting plus IBL ambient-light adjustment. Inspect a model's pose and structure without opening Blender or MMD, handy when drawing from 3D references.
Workspace
workbenchThe app's main screen: sidebar on the left, your conversation with Nephele in the middle, and a row of buttons under the input for switching what you're doing (find references, organize the library, trace an image, and so on).
SHA256
sha256A file-fingerprint algorithm: the same file always produces the same 64-character string, and changing one byte changes it completely. Comparing this value is how you check that a downloaded installer wasn't altered.
Code-signing certificate
code-signingA credential a software vendor buys from a certificate authority to sign its installers. Once signed, Windows stops showing "Unknown publisher". Nephele's beta doesn't have one yet, which is why browsers and Windows raise reputation warnings — that's the missing signature, not a problem with the file.
Local inference models
local-inferenceAI models that run on your own computer, for image tagging and library search. Your images never leave the machine, nothing goes online, and no cloud credits are spent. Download only what you need; turning one off doesn't delete the files.
Memory (RAM)
ramYour computer's temporary workspace. Programs keep what they're actively using here, and it empties when you close them or shut down. It sets how much you can have open before things get sluggish — which is why 8 GB feels tight once tagging or recording is running, and 16 GB doesn't. It is not the same thing as disk.
Disk
diskWhere your computer keeps things long term — files are still there after a shutdown. The app itself, the AI models, your assets and your process recordings all take up room here, so it's worth checking how much is left before installing. On Windows the system drive is usually `C:`.
64-bit
64-bitThe bit-width a piece of software or a system is built for. Nearly every Windows PC today is 64-bit, and Nephele ships 64-bit only — an old 32-bit system can't install it. Not sure? Windows 11 is always 64-bit, and the vast majority of Windows 10 installs are too.
Graphics card (GPU)
gpuThe chip that draws things — your screen, 3D previews, and Nephele's local AI models all use it. It sets how smooth 3D preview and image handling feel. The DirectX / OpenGL figures in the requirements are two "languages" a graphics card uses to talk to software; any recent version will do.
Browser extension
browser-extensionAn add-on you install into your browser to give it extra abilities. Wisp is one: with it installed, your browser can fetch images and data from platforms on Nephele's behalf. The browser's extension page (type `edge://extensions` in Edge) shows what's installed and whether it's switched on.
Trojan
trojanA malicious program disguised as legitimate software that steals data or takes remote control of your machine. People say "virus" and "trojan" interchangeably for this kind of thing. When security software names one specifically (e.g. `Trojan-Downloader.Win32.…`), don't force the install — check with the vendor first.
Beta
betaA version that's still being publicly tested and isn't final. It works, but there may be bugs left to find and details can still change. Nephele is in beta right now; a final release comes later.
Reputation warning
reputation-warningA heads-up your browser and Windows give for installers that few people have downloaded yet, or that have no code signature. It means "I don't recognise this file" — not that a virus was found. Once you've confirmed the source, follow the prompt and keep it.
Virus report
virus-reportWhen security software **names a specific virus or Trojan** (e.g. `Trojan-Downloader.Win32.…`). This is not the same as a reputation warning: one means "not recognised", the other means "identified". If you see a name, stop and check with the vendor first.
The glossary is continuously updated as the product evolves. If you have a term to suggest or find an explanation unclear, feel free to email [email protected].