AI tools are great at producing output that sounds right. But without product context, they often get the details wrong—especially when your product uses terms that overlap with everyday language, or when internal shorthand doesn’t match customer-facing terminology.

Product knowledge is where you define that context in Atono. It allows you to generate and manage structured product concepts that can be used with AI tools across your workflows.

Glossary

The glossary builds a structured list of your product’s key concepts from documentation URLs you provide. It extracts high-confidence terms—such as feature names, workflows, screens, roles, and domain-specific language—and organizes them into a reusable reference.

There's one shared glossary per workspace. Rebuilding it updates the glossary for everyone in the workspace.

Each glossary entry may include:

Name — The fully spelled-out concept name. Each name is unique.
Description — A concise, plain-English definition written to be efficient for AI usage.
Synonyms — Alternate names or abbreviations found in your documentation.
Related concepts — Links to other glossary entries that are closely related.

The glossary gives AI tools consistent terminology and clearer context about how concepts in your product relate to one another.

View the glossary

If a glossary has already been built for your workspace, you can open it to browse existing concepts. The Glossary panel shows the total number of concepts and when the glossary was created.

Open the Product knowledge page.
In the Glossary panel, click View.

Search the glossary

Quickly locate a concept by searching for a keyword in its name or description.

Click the search (magnifying glass) icon at the top of the glossary.
Enter a search term. The glossary automatically updates to show matching concepts with the search term highlighted in its name or description.

Build the glossary

Building a glossary generates a structured list of product concepts for your workspace from the documentation URLs you provide.

Open the Product knowledge page.
Click Build glossary.
Optionally, enter your Product name.
- If your product name overlaps with a common word, adding it here helps reduce ambiguity during glossary generation.
Paste one more more Documentation URLs.
- We suggest help documentation, knowledge bases, or user or admin guides.
- You can add multiple URLs if your documentation spans sections.

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Tip: Use root-level URLs for better coverage
Atono crawls your documentation starting from the URLs you provide. For best results, enter a root-level URL (parent path), not a single article page.
For example:

https://docs.example.com/docs/welcome-to-product may crawl only that page.

https://docs.example.com/docs is more likely to crawl that section and the pages beneath it.

Recommendation: Use the highest-level URL that represents the section you want included in your glossary.

Click Build glossary to begin processing.

Building the glossary may take up to 15 or 20 minutes. Atono shows progress while it runs. You can navigate away—when the build completes or fails, Atono displays a notification with the result.

View sources and status

The Sources tab shows which documentation sources were used to generate your glossary, when the crawl started, and whether each source was successfully retrieved.

Open the Product knowledge page.
In the Glossary panel, click View.
Click the Sources tab.
Review the list of source URLs.
Click a source row to expand it and view the individual URLs that were crawled.

Each source displays:

Source — The URL you entered.
Status — How many URLs were crawled and if there were any failures.
Created — When the glossary build started.

If a source fails, it shows a Failed status. Glossary generation can still succeed as long as most sources are retrieved successfully.

Export the glossary

When glossary entries exist, an Export option is available.

Open the glossary.
Click the ellipsis icon (...) and select Export glossary.

Exports are in TSV (tab-separated values) format and include a header row with the following columns:

Name
Description
Synonyms
Related concepts

You can use this export as structured context in AI workflows—for example, when drafting stories, generating documentation, or planning code.

Use the glossary with AI tools

The exported glossary works as shared context when working with AI assistants. Some ways to use it:

Provide it to an AI tool before refining stories or drafting documentation.
Include it when generating acceptance criteria or reviewing edge cases.
Add it to prompts for AI coding assistants so that terminology and feature relationships are interpreted correctly.

Giving AI a structured glossary reduces ambiguity and helps keep terminology consistent across stories, documentation, and code.

Refresh the glossary

Refreshing the glossary reprocesses your existing sources to find meaningful updates from your documentation. Atono looks for new key concepts, updates to existing concepts, and concepts that may no longer apply.

Open the glossary.
On the Sources tab, click Refresh glossary.

While the refresh is running, manual edits to glossary concepts are temporarily blocked. You can still view the glossary, export it, and manage its permissions.

When the refresh completes, the glossary reflects any confirmed changes from the source:

Newly identified key concepts are added.
Existing concepts are updated only when clearly supported by the source.
Concepts that no longer apply are removed.

Deleted concepts remain excluded from future refreshes unless restored.

When to refresh the glossary

The glossary reflects the documentation it was generated from. If your product or docs change, refreshing helps keep AI output aligned with your current terminology.

Rebuild the glossary when:

Major features are added or renamed.
Core workflows change.
Terminology shifts between internal and customer-facing language.
Help documentation is significantly updated.

Manage the glossary

In addition to building the glossary automatically from documentation, you can manually add, edit, delete, and restore individual concepts to keep your glossary accurate as your product evolves.

As you make changes, Atono tracks updates to each concept over time, so you can review version history and undo or restore changes when needed. For more details, see Track and manage changes.

Only Workspace Owners, Administrators, Product Managers, and users with glossary Owner or Contributor permissions can manage concepts. All other users have a read-only view.

Add a concept

Add a concept manually when a term is missing from the generated glossary or needs to be defined in a way that better reflects your product's usage.

Open the glossary.
On the Concepts tab, click Add concept.
Enter a Name and Description for the concept.
Optionally, add one or more synonyms as a comma-separated list.
Optionally, add any related concepts by selecting from existing glossary concepts. To remove a related concept, click the X on the concept pill.
Click Add, or click Cancel or X to discard.

Edit a concept

Edit a concept to update its name, description, synonyms, or related concepts.

Open the glossary.
On the Concepts tab, click the ellipsis icon (...) next to the name of the concept you want to edit.
From the menu, select Edit.
Modify the concept details.
Click Save, or click Cancel or X to discard.

Delete a concept

Delete a concept to remove it from the glossary. Deleted concepts are moved to the Deleted concepts page, where they're excluded from future glossary refreshes. You can restore a deleted concept at any time.

Open the glossary.
On the Concepts tab, click the ellipsis icon (...) next to the name of the concept you want to delete.
From the menu, select Delete.
In the Delete concept dialog, click Delete to confirm, or click X to cancel.

You can also delete a concept from within the edit view.

Restore a concept

Deleted concepts are saved on the Deleted concepts page. Concepts listed here are excluded from glossary refreshes. If someone tries to manually add a concept with the same name as a deleted concept, Atono will prompt them to restore it instead.

The Deleted concepts list includes each concept's name, which user deleted it (or ✦ AI if it was removed automatically during a glossary refresh), and when it was deleted.

Open the glossary.
Click the ellipses (...) icon next to the Glossary title.
From the menu, select Deleted concepts.
On the Deleted concepts page, click Restore next to the concept you want to add back.

Track and manage changes

As you add and refine concepts, Atono keeps a record of every change made to your glossary. This includes changes made manually and those created when the glossary was first built or refreshed.

You can review these changes, understand how a concept has evolved over time, and revert changes when needed—either across multiple concepts or within a single one.

Changes made during a glossary refresh are grouped together in the History tab. You can review these changes as a set or undo them all at once, or undo individual changes within the group.

Only Workspace Owners, Administrators, Product Managers, and users with glossary Owner or Contributor permissions can view change history, including the History tab and version history. Other users won’t see these options.

View change history

The History tab shows a list of changes made to your glossary. Each entry represents a single change to a concept, including additions, edits, and deletions. For each change, you’ll see the concept name, the type of change, who made it, and when it occurred.

Open the glossary and click the History tab.

Use this view to scan recent activity and identify changes you may want to review or undo. To see the details of a change, click an entry to open the concept and view its version history.

As changes build on each other, some entries include additional context to show how they relate to other updates. For example, you may see when a concept was last edited, when a version was restored, or when a change was later reversed. These details help clarify which version is current and how the concept has evolved over time.

Sort the list

By default, changes are shown in reverse chronological order, with the most recent activity at the top. Click History at the top of the table to toggle between newest-first and oldest-first.

Filter the list

You can filter the list to focus on specific types of changes or sources. Click Filter by to refine the results:

Type shows only additions, edits, or deletions.
Source shows changes made by AI or by users.

Review changes to a concept

Open a concept from the History tab—or from the Concepts tab—to view its version history.

In the concept detail panel, click Version history.

The version history shows all previous versions of the concept, with changes highlighted between each version. This view is useful when you want to closely inspect how a concept has evolved before restoring it.

Restore or undo changes

You can revert changes in two ways, depending on your starting point.

Restore a previous version

Use this when reviewing a single concept.

From the version history, select the version you want to restore and click Restore version. Confirm the action to create a new current version using the selected content. Earlier versions are preserved, so you can continue to move backward or forward through the concept’s history if needed.

Undo recent changes

Use this when working from the History tab.

Undo allows you to revert recent changes directly from the History list without opening each concept individually. This is useful when reviewing recent updates or correcting changes across multiple concepts.

Undo multiple changes

From the History tab, you can select multiple changes and undo them in a single action.

Select one or more eligible entries to activate the bulk action bar, then click Undo.

Only the most recent change to a concept can be selected. If a newer change exists, the checkbox is disabled. To revert an earlier change, undo the more recent changes first, or restore a specific version from the concept’s version history.

Each change is undone based on its type. Additions are reversed by removing the concept, edits are rolled back to the previous version, and deletions restore the concept.

Before undoing the selected changes, you’ll be asked to confirm the action. The confirmation summarizes the changes and what will happen to each one. Once confirmed, the History list and any affected concepts update to reflect the reverted changes.

Glossary refresh changes

Changes made during a glossary refresh are grouped together in the History tab. This makes it easier to review related updates and undo them together.

Each refresh shows a summary of changes, including how many concepts were added, edited, or deleted. Expand a refresh to review individual changes, grouped by type.

Undo a glossary refresh

You can undo changes from a glossary refresh in two ways:

Undo the entire refresh

Reverts all changes from the refresh: Added concepts are deleted. Edited concepts revert to their previous version. Deleted concepts are restored. The glossary returns to its previous state. The refresh and its changes are removed from history.

Only the most recent glossary refresh can be undone this way. If changes have been made after the refresh, bulk undo is not available.

Undo individual changes

Expand the refresh to view individual changes. Select and undo specific additions, edits, or deletions. Individual changes can be undone regardless of whether bulk undo is available.

Glossary permissions

Glossary permissions control who can manage concepts and perform actions like refreshing or deleting the glossary. All workspace users can view the glossary regardless of their permission level.

Glossary permission types

When you create the glossary, you automatically receive Owner permissions. As an owner, you can add or remove permissions for other users in your workspace.

Contributor: Glossary contributors can manually add, edit, delete, and restore glossary concepts.
Owner: Glossary owners have the same capabilities as contributors, but only they can refresh and delete the glossary.

Workspace Owners and Administrators and Product Managers have the same abilities as glossary owners, without explicitly requiring Owner permissions.

Grant glossary permissions

Only Workspace Owners, Administrators, Product Managers, and users with glossary Owner permission can assign permissions to other users.

On the Glossary page, click the ellipsis (...) icon.
From the menu, select Glossary permissions.
In the Glossary permissions dialog, search for the users you want to grant permissions to.
Choose whether to assign them as an Owner or Contributor.
Click Add.
Repeat as needed, then click Done when finished.

Change a user's permissions

Only Workspace Owners, Administrators, Product Managers, and users with glossary Owner permissions can change the permissions for other users. You can't modify your own permissions.

On the glossary page, click the ellipsis (...) icon
From the menu, select Glossary permissions.
In the Glossary permissions dialog, modify the permission level in the Glossary permission column.
Click Done.

Remove glossary permissions

Only Workspace Owners, Administrators, Product Managers, and users with glossary Owner permission can remove the permissions for other users. You can't modify your own permissions.

On the Glossary page, click the ellipsis (...) icon.
From the menu, select Glossary permissions.
In the Glossary permissions dialog, hover over the user you want to remove and click the ellipsis (...) icon.
From the menu, select Remove.

Delete the glossary

Deleting the glossary permanently removes all glossary concepts from your workspace. Delete it when you want to rebuild from updated documentation or different sources.

Open the Product knowledge page.
On the Glossary page, click the ellipsis (...) icon.
Click Delete glossary.
In the Delete glossary dialog, click Delete glossary to confirm, or click X to cancel.

After deleting the glossary, click Build glossary to generate a new one.