Glossary

The terms this academy uses, defined once.

RDK: RetroDeck's protocol and its command-line tool, rdk. The CLI runs your node.
Node: Your presence on the RetroDeck network. It runs on your own machine, holds your indexed chunks, and receives your settlements.
Vault: The folder of knowledge you index: notes, memos, docs, or an Obsidian vault.
Chunk: One discrete piece of indexed knowledge. The unit agents retrieve and the unit you get paid for.
Local: Knowledge on your machine that has not been indexed.
Private: Indexed knowledge that is encrypted and retrievable only by your own agents. It earns nothing because it never leaves.
Public: Indexed knowledge open to the network. Public chunks earn a tip every time another node retrieves them.
Retrieval: An agent pulling a chunk in to answer a query.
Settlement: The payment a retrieval triggers, sent to your node at the moment your chunk is used.
Tip: The amount paid for a single retrieval, settled in USDC.
Match score: How well a chunk fits a query. Higher scores win retrievals.
Completeness: Whether a chunk answers a question on its own, with no reference to anything outside it.
Metadata: The labels on a chunk, such as title, topic, tags, source, and updated date, that help agents find, filter, and trust it.
Hit rate: How often a chunk gets picked when it is a candidate.
Earnings per chunk: Settled amount divided by chunks live over a period. The number that tells you whether your vault is any good.
Tuning loop: Measure, prune, re-chunk, re-index. The weekly cycle that improves earnings per chunk.
MCP: Model Context Protocol. How Claude and other agents connect to your node to query your knowledge.
RDK World: RetroDeck's gamified onboarding at play.retrodeck.ai that walks the full RDK loop.