Reference
Glossary
Plain definitions of the words Piste and its docs use, from workspace and light member to proposal, store edit, standing approval and weekly ledger.
This glossary defines the words Piste uses in the app, in Slack and in these docs, in alphabetical order. Each entry is one or two sentences and links to the page that explains it in full. Where a feature needs a Google Ads or Meta account, it's marked Early access.
A
Ad change
One change to a connected Google Ads or Meta account that waits for a person, such as a campaign's budget, negative keywords, or pausing a campaign Early access. Piste proposes only kinds of change it can undo, and a budget moves at most 20% per change. See Ad changes.
Agency room
A Slack channel you already share with your ad agency, which the owner opens as a room so the agency's people can ask Piste about the ad accounts and propose ad changes Early access. Only full, active members of your own Slack workspace can decide those changes. See Agency rooms.
App
A tool you run the business in, such as Gmail, Notion or Klaviyo, that the owner connects on the Apps page, one account per app. Piste uses it only in the owner's own conversations and automations: it reads freely, asks the owner before it sends or changes anything in a conversation, and in an automation run can at most propose a Gmail draft. See Connected apps.
Approval
A pause in a conversation while Piste waits for a person to press Approve before a step that changes something goes ahead. The workspace owner, or the person who started the conversation, can approve, and a few kinds of step only the owner. See Approvals.
Automation
Recurring work the owner sets up: instructions, a schedule in a time zone (or, for a store trigger, something that happens in the store), and where the result goes. Each run does the work as the owner in a chat of its own, and a change it wants to your store or ad accounts becomes a proposal instead of being made. See Automations.
B
Browser hand-off
When a sign-in, a two-factor prompt or a captcha blocks the coder's browser, the coder hands the browser to the owner, who takes control on the job's page, does the step and hands it back. Each attempt at a job can wait this way for up to 45 minutes in total, and its 60 minutes of working time stop meanwhile. See Jobs and the coder.
C
Card
The message with buttons that carries a proposal: under an automation's post in Slack, in a conversation's thread, or in Needs you on the web. A press decides that one change, and the card then shows who decided and when. See Proposals and cards.
Change follow-up
Piste's verdict on a price change, discount or product launch a week after it happened: the store's figures for the week after against the week before, a before-and-after comparison rather than a test. Its card offers Keep it, a button to revert the change where there's something to revert, and Check again in 7 days. See Change follow-ups.
Chat
One conversation with Piste. The web app lists your web chats and your iMessage conversation, and each automation run starts a chat of its own; a Slack conversation is one thread and stays in Slack. See Web app.
ChatGPT plan
Your own ChatGPT subscription, which the owner can connect so the coder's jobs run on it instead of on Piste, unless a Claude plan is connected, and, if the owner switches it on, the whole agent too. When the plan reaches its limit, chat and automations run on Piste until it resets. See ChatGPT plan.
Claude plan
The owner's own Claude Pro or Max subscription, which they can connect on the Connections page so the coder's jobs run Claude Code on it, ahead of a ChatGPT plan or Piste. It's for jobs only, and a job on it has no browser. See Jobs and the coder.
Clearance markdown
A store edit that marks down every in-stock variant of a product with nothing ordered in 60 days by 25%, keeping today's price as the compare-at price. The Change follow-ups automation proposes up to three a week, and nothing changes until someone presses the card's button. See Store edits.
Coder
The part of Piste that does longer work, such as a script, a file transformation or a task on a website, in a fresh, disposable computer of its own. Piste hands it a written brief, and the work runs as a job. See Jobs and the coder.
D
Data tools
Paid external data Piste can call, such as search results, keyword and SEO data, people and company enrichment and reading web pages, within a monthly allowance the owner sets ($50 unless changed). Piste asks before a call estimated over $0.50, one with no price, or one that changes something. See Data tools.
Decision log
The record of every decision Piste's approval checks make: what ran without asking and why, what it asked and who answered, and what it refused, along with every decision taken on a card. The owner reads it on the Activity page and can download it as a CSV. See Decision log.
Dry run
A test run of an automation, started with Try it now: Piste does every read and writes its full result, but changes nothing and posts nothing, and the result stays in the run's chat. An automation made from a template on the Automations page or in a chat starts with one. See Automations.
F
First week
The week after the Kickoff, when Piste sends at most one short message a day in the same Slack thread, at 9am on weekdays, then a summary of the week around day 7. Only the owner can stop it, with Stop the daily messages or by saying so. See Slack.
H
Home
The web app's front page, at https://app.usepiste.com/chat: a greeting with yesterday's sales, the box to ask Piste, what's waiting on you, what's worth a look in the store, recent chats and the next runs. It reads your store live on each visit and keeps nothing it read. See Web app.
House rules
The owner's own short rules for an installed playbook, such as "Never reorder the Wool Beanie", up to 2,000 characters. They win over the playbook's defaults, but never over a limit Piste enforces or an approval. See Playbooks.
J
Job
One piece of longer work the coder runs, shown on the Jobs page with its status, result and transcript. A job gets up to 60 minutes of working time, one runs at a time per workspace, and only the owner can start, cancel or retry one. See Jobs and the coder.
K
Kickoff
The onboarding conversation in Slack: within about a minute of the workspace's first Slack install, Piste messages the owner with what it found in the store and offers to start an automation in a channel of its own. It happens only for a first install made during onboarding or within 24 hours of finishing it. See Slack.
L
Light member
Someone in your Slack workspace who uses Piste without a Piste login. Any full, active member of the Slack workspace where Piste is installed becomes one the first time they message Piste or press a card under an automation's post; guests can't. See Team and roles.
Listening channel
A public Slack channel where the owner said "@Piste listen in here", so Piste may answer a question about a store product that nobody addressed to it, once per thread and without changing anything. A channel gets at most 5 of these in any 24 hours, and any full member can switch it off with "@Piste stop listening". See Channels.
M
Margin memo
What one Monday-to-Sunday week made once product cost is taken out, and ad spend where an ad account is connected, store-wide and by product. It uses Shopify's cost per item, never estimates a missing cost, and is also a weekly automation template. See Margin memo.
MCP server
One of your business's own tools that the owner adds by its address on the Apps page, so Piste can use it in the owner's conversations and automations. Piste runs reads, while a call that could do harm waits for the owner's approval in a conversation and is refused in an automation run. See MCP servers.
Member
Anyone who belongs to a workspace: the owner, and the light members who use Piste through Slack. See Team and roles.
Memory
One short document per workspace of lasting facts about the business, such as shipping rules, suppliers or sale dates, shared by everyone who talks to Piste. Piste saves and removes entries as you talk, and the owner reads and corrects them on the Memory page. See Memory.
Monday budget memo
The weekly measurement plan posted in its own Slack channel, #piste-budget, every Monday at 8:00: what last week's budget change did and this week's proposed move, decided with the card's buttons Early access. It needs a Google Ads or Meta account. See Weekly plan.
N
Needs you
The web app's list of everything waiting on you: approvals, questions, changes waiting for a decision, and anything that stopped until you look at it. Ad changes, change follow-ups and store edits can be decided there with the same buttons as in Slack. See Web app.
O
Order hold
A store edit that holds a risky order's fulfilment before it ships, proposed from an order store trigger or when you ask about an order, if Shopify rates its risk high, or medium with at least two of three warning signs. It goes out of date after 24 hours, and Release it lifts the hold. See Store edits.
Owner
The person who signed up on the web and created the workspace. Only the owner signs in to the web app, connects accounts, manages automations and starts jobs. See Team and roles.
P
Playbook
A specialist method added to your one Piste agent in a single install, bringing its skills, scheduled routines, a few setup questions and standing instructions. The one in the catalogue is Store operations, which reads your store and changes nothing in it. See Playbooks.
Pre-order
A store edit that lets a best seller about to sell out keep taking orders past zero, proposed by Piste's stock check in the Stock watch automation or when you ask what's about to sell out. Only the owner can switch one on, since customers would buy what isn't in stock. See Store edits.
Price probe
A 5% price rise on a steady best seller for 14 days, as a store edit someone starts from its card, to see whether sales hold. When it ends, Piste puts the price back by itself, and only if nobody has changed it since. See Store edits.
Proposal
A change Piste wants to make, stored with its evidence and put to your team on a card instead of being made. An automation run leaves a change it wants to your store or ad accounts, or a Gmail draft, as a proposal and ends; nothing changes until someone decides, except what a standing approval covers. See Proposals and cards.
Q
Quiet hours
When Piste may post outside a conversation, set by the owner by telling Piste: working hours in a time zone, and Slack channels that get their posts once a day. Posts that aren't due wait for the next opening, while urgent ones, such as a large-order alert, come through at any hour. See Quiet hours and digests.
R
Report page
A report Piste publishes at a stable link, such as a weekly trading report, with every number labelled with where it came from. At first only someone signed in to your workspace, which means the owner, can open it, and only the owner can make it public to anyone with the link. See Report pages.
Routine
A playbook's scheduled job, such as Store operations' morning check: an ordinary automation that arrives switched off with a preview, and runs on its schedule once the owner switches it on. See Playbooks.
Run
One time an automation does its work: on its schedule, when the owner presses Run now, or when a store trigger fires. Each run has its own chat, and a run that finds nothing worth saying stays quiet and isn't posted. See Automations.
S
Sale room
A public Slack channel for one sale the owner names, such as Black Friday weekend, where Piste posts readiness before the sale, pacing while it runs and a debrief after it. A sale can be up to 14 days long. See Sale rooms.
Show the working
A button on change follow-up, ad change and budget cards in Slack that posts, in the card's thread, what Piste read, the rule that raised the card and exactly what it would write. It changes nothing, so anyone in your Slack workspace who can see the card may press it, guests included. See Proposals and cards.
Skill
A procedure your workspace has written down for a recurring task: a name, when to use it, and the steps. Piste loads a matching skill when a task calls for it, in every conversation and automation, and the owner writes skills on the Skills page. See Skills.
Standing approval
The owner's leave for Piste to apply one kind of ad change itself, with nobody pressing a button: exact-match negative keywords on a Google Ads campaign, within set limits Early access. Piste offers it only after people applied the last four such changes over at least a week with none undone, and it switches itself off if one it applied is undone. See Standing approvals.
Store edit
A small, exact change to your Shopify store that Piste proposes and a person decides from its card, such as a discount's end date or a variant's price. Every store edit can be undone, a price moves at most 50%, and an edit nobody decides goes out of date after 7 days, or 24 hours for an order hold. See Store edits.
Store trigger
An automation that runs when something happens in the store instead of at a set time: a big order, a new customer's first order, a top customer's order, stock running out, or a spike in refunds. Piste checks the store every 5 minutes by default, the owner approves each trigger, and the first-order and top-customer kinds need customer access that Piste doesn't ask Shopify for. See Store triggers.
T
Target
The number the owner is aiming for, so Piste can say whether a figure is good: net sales over a calendar month, or return on ad spend over a week Early access. The owner sets it by telling Piste, and Piste judges it on closed days only. See Targets.
Template
A ready-made automation Piste defines, such as the Morning sales briefing or Stock watch, with its numbers filled in from your store and a default schedule. A workspace can have one automation per template, and when it's created on the Automations page or in a chat, its first run is a dry run. See Templates.
W
Watch
A question about the store you asked Piste to keep you posted on with Keep me posted: an automation that checks every Monday at 8:00, or every morning at 8:00 for a question about days, and posts only when the answer has moved by more than 10% and by a real amount. Only the owner's press sets one up. See Schedule and watches.
Weekly ledger
One message a week in the owner's Slack DM, after 4pm on Friday, listing who decided what on Piste's proposals that week, with each result beside it. It never adds money up, and a week with nothing to report sends nothing. See Quiet hours and digests.
Workspace
Your business's home in Piste: one per owner, holding its one agent, chats, automations, connected stores, memory and everything else. A workspace can connect several Shopify stores, and each store belongs to one workspace. See Team and roles.