Glossary

This glossary defines every product term used elsewhere in the Performance Blocks documentation. Entries are alphabetical. Where applicable, each entry links to the article that covers the term in depth.

A

API key

A credential used to authenticate programmatic requests to the Performance Blocks API. Keys are scoped (read-only or read-write), rate-limited, and tied to the tenant that issued them. API keys are an Agentic-plan feature and are managed by org admins in Settings → Developers. See API keys.

Attribute

An organization-defined competency or behavior that can be tagged on observations and rolled up into summaries. Examples: "Communication," "Ownership," "Customer focus." Attributes are configured by org admins in Settings → Attributes and apply across the tenant. See attributes.

Audit log

An immutable record of significant actions in the tenant, such as feature flag changes, role grants, employee archival, and admin sign-ins. Audit logs use RESTRICT foreign keys so they are never cascaded away. See audit logs.

B

Block

An alias for observation. Used interchangeably in the product UI. Each observation is a discrete data point about an employee — a single block of evidence — that combines with others to form summaries. See observations.

Bot

The Slack or Microsoft Teams app that exposes Henry inside those platforms. The bot reads messages it is mentioned in and authenticates the requesting user against the Performance Blocks tenant. Available on the Agentic plan. See Henry on Slack and Henry on Teams.

C

Chrome extension

A browser extension that lets users capture observations and ask Henry questions from any web page. Captured content is sent to the user's Performance Blocks tenant after authentication. Available on the Agentic plan. See Henry Chrome extension.

Conversation

A structured 1:1 record between a manager and a direct report, with an agenda, talking points, and follow-up notes. Conversations can be drafted by AI from recent observations, edited by the manager, and optionally shared with the employee via the portal. See conversations.

Custom field

An optional tenant-defined field that admins can add to observations or employees. Useful for capturing org-specific metadata that is not part of the default schema. Configured in Settings → Custom fields.

D

Department

A grouping of employees, typically aligned with the org chart. Departments are used for filtering, reporting, and access control. Departments can be synced from an HRIS or managed manually in Settings → Org structure.

E

Employee

A person in your tenant. Every employee occupies one seat. Employees can have one or more roles (employee, manager, org_admin). The base employee role grants access only to the employee portal. See employees.

Employee portal

The employee-facing surface where employees see content their manager has shared (summaries, conversations), submit feedback, and track their objectives. Controlled by the employeePortal feature flag. See employee portal.

F

Feature flag

A toggle that controls whether a feature is available in your tenant. Org admins manage flags in Settings → Features. Some flags depend on others; the product enforces dependencies. See the feature availability matrix.

Feedback assignment

A 360-style request from a manager to a peer asking for written feedback on a specific employee. Assignments are delivered through the employee portal. Requires the feedbackAssignment and employeePortal flags. See feedback assignment.

G

Guided flow

A step-by-step interaction inside the Henry panel that walks a user through completing a task — for example, drafting a summary or starting a conversation. Each flow has a defined sequence of steps, each step has a type (text input, multiple choice, editor, confirmation), and state persists in KV for one hour. See Henry guided flows.

H

Henry Agent

The conversational AI built into Performance Blocks. Henry is available on the web (in-app panel), in Slack and Microsoft Teams, as a Chrome extension, and via email. Henry is grounded in your tenant's data and (optionally) your knowledge base via RAG. Available on the Agentic plan. See Henry overview.

HRIS

Human Resources Information System. The system of record for your employees, reporting lines, departments, and employment status. Performance Blocks can sync from HRIS providers including Workday, BambooHR, Rippling, and Gusto. Requires the hrisIntegration flag (Agentic plan). See HRIS sync.

K

Knowledge base

A collection of documents (policies, templates, reference material) that admins upload so Henry can ground responses in your organization's content. Documents are chunked, embedded, and searched via RAG when relevant to a Henry query. Requires aiKnowledgeBase. See knowledge base.

M

Magic link

A one-time sign-in link sent to a user's email. Magic links are the default authentication method when SSO is not enforced. Links expire after a short window and can only be used once. See authentication.

Manager

A role granted to employees who have direct reports. Managers can capture observations, run conversations, draft summaries, and (with the right flags) share content with their reports. Managers cannot administer the tenant unless they also have the org_admin role.

O

Objective

A goal tracked at the organization, manager, or employee level. Objectives use a fiscal-year/fiscal-quarter cadence and have status tracking. Controlled by the objectives, managerObjectives, and employeeObjectives flags. See objectives.

Observation

A discrete piece of evidence about an employee — a behavior, a result, or a moment worth recording. Observations have a tone (positive, neutral, constructive), can be tagged with attributes, and feed into summaries and conversations. Observations are also called "blocks" in the UI. See observations.

Opportunity

A type of observation tone indicating an area for growth or improvement. Pairs with strength as the two primary constructive lenses managers use when capturing evidence.

Org admin

A role that grants administrative access to the tenant — settings, employee management, billing, audit logs, and feature flags. Multiple people can hold the org admin role. Org admins are not automatically managers; the two are independent.

Org chart

The visual representation of reporting relationships in the tenant. The org chart can be hand-edited or synced from an HRIS. See org chart.

P

Performance Blocks

The product itself: a continuous performance management platform built around discrete observations ("blocks") that aggregate into conversations, summaries, and reviews. Available in two plans (Team and Agentic). See getting started.

R

RAG

Retrieval-Augmented Generation. The technique Henry uses to ground responses in your knowledge base and team data: relevant chunks are retrieved by semantic search, then passed to the LLM as context. RAG limits hallucination and lets Henry cite sources. See knowledge base.

Rate limit

A per-tenant or per-key cap on how many requests can hit the API or Henry within a time window. Rate limits prevent runaway automations and protect shared infrastructure. Limits are documented in API rate limits.

Review cycle

A scheduled period during which managers complete summaries and (optionally) employees submit self-feedback. Cycles are configured in Settings → Cycles and can be aligned with your fiscal calendar. See review cycles.

Review item

An individual deliverable inside a review cycle — for example, a summary for a specific direct report, or a self-assessment from an employee.

Role

A permission grant on an employee. Performance Blocks roles are stored as a text[] array on the employee record. Valid values: employee, manager, org_admin. An employee can hold multiple roles. The base employee role is implicit for everyone in the tenant.

S

Seat

A billable unit. Each active employee in the tenant occupies one seat. Pending invitations and archived employees do not count. See plans and pricing.

Session

An authenticated browser session. Sessions are managed server-side via Better Auth and have a configurable timeout. Sessions are revoked on sign-out, password change, or admin-initiated session purge. See sessions and security.

Share

The act of making a summary or conversation visible to the relevant employee in their portal. Sharing is a deliberate action — content is private to the manager until shared. Requires shareSummaries or shareConversations.

Skip-level summary

A summary that aggregates content from a manager's indirect reports — typically used by directors and above to get a roll-up view across multiple management layers. Requires skipLevelSummaries and teamSummaries. Agentic plan only. See skip-level summaries.

SSO

Single Sign-On. Performance Blocks supports SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect. When enforced, all sign-ins go through your identity provider. Requires the sso flag (Agentic plan). See SSO.

Strength

A type of observation tone indicating something the employee is doing well. Pairs with opportunity as the two primary constructive lenses managers use when capturing evidence.

Summary

A narrative that aggregates observations across a date range and attribute set, optionally drafted by AI and edited by the manager. Summaries can be shared with employees and used as input to review cycles. See summaries.

Super admin

An internal Performance Blocks role used only by our staff for support and incident response. Super admin actions are heavily audited. Super admins are not visible to your tenant and never count against your seat count.

T

Team Summary

A summary that rolls up multiple direct reports into a single document, useful for team-level retrospectives. Controlled by the teamSummaries flag. See team summaries.

Tenant

The top-level container for one organization's data. Each customer has exactly one tenant. All employees, observations, summaries, settings, and audit logs are scoped to a single tenant. There is no cross-tenant data sharing.

Two-factor authentication

An additional sign-in factor (TOTP) that org admins can require for sensitive roles. 2FA is enforced via Better Auth and configured in Settings → Security.

W

Webhook

An HTTP callback fired by Performance Blocks when a subscribed event occurs (for example, observation created, summary shared). Webhooks are an Agentic plan feature configured in Settings → Developers → Webhooks. See webhooks.

Related reading

• Plans and pricing — what each plan includes.
• Feature availability matrix — what each flag does.
• Frequently asked questions — common questions about these terms in context.