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Use the terms glossary

The Terms glossary is a central library of terms and definitions so documentation uses consistent, well-defined vocabulary. Defined terms are highlighted in task instructions across your organization — readers hover a highlighted term to see its definition without leaving the page.

Everyone in the organization can view the glossary. Members with the Manager content access role can add, edit, and delete terms and see usage analytics. See permissions and roles for how content access roles work.

Open the terms glossary

Click the Settings icon in the left sidebar, then navigate to Org Settings → Terms glossary. The glossary lists each term with its definition.

Add a term

  1. In Terms glossary, click Add term.
  2. Enter the Term — the canonical name, for example Purchase Order.
  3. Enter the Definition — a plain-text explanation of what the term means in your organization.
  4. Optionally add Alternate terms — other spellings, abbreviations, or synonyms for the same concept. Type an alternate and press Enter to add it. Alternates are detected in task instructions the same way the primary term is.
  5. Click Add term.

To change a term later, open its overflow menu and edit it; the modal’s confirm button reads Save changes. To delete a term, choose the delete action and confirm with Delete term.

See defined terms in task instructions

Wherever a glossary term — or one of its alternates — appears in a task instruction, it is underlined with a dashed line:

  • Hover the term to see its definition.
  • Click the term to open the definition in a popover.

When the text on the page is an alternate, the popover also shows the canonical term name, so readers always learn the preferred vocabulary.

Detection is automatic: as soon as a term is added to the glossary, it is highlighted in every task instruction where it appears, with no change to the documents themselves.

Highlighting travels with your public documentation, too. When a task instruction is published with Public access, its defined terms are highlighted — with hover and click definitions — for anyone viewing it, including visitors who are not signed in. See Publish global tasks for how public access works.

Track how terms are used

The Analytics tab (visible to members who can manage the glossary) shows how often each term appears across your organization’s task instructions:

  • The Occurrences column counts every appearance of a term and its alternates, and can be sorted.
  • Expand a term’s row to see the count per alternate and a numbered Sources list linking to each task instruction where the term appears. Clicking a source opens that document.

Use analytics to find terms that are heavily used (worth defining precisely) or never used (candidates for cleanup).

Look up terms with Klarify AI

Connected AI clients can search the glossary with the search_glossary tool, so the assistant resolves your organization’s vocabulary when answering questions. See the tool reference.