# Core Concepts



## Environment [#environment]

The boundary everything else sits inside. A workspace can hold several
environments (`production`, `staging`, one per brand or region), and
**everything else belongs to exactly one of them**: leads, forms, the Vault,
integrations, API keys.

An API key or OAuth connection belongs to one environment, so an MCP tool call
can never reach another one. `?tools=` changes which tools your assistant
*loads*, never which data it may *touch*. See
[Tool bundles](/mcp-server/tool-bundles).

## Lead [#lead]

One person, one record, in the [Lead Data Layer](/platform/leads). Surface
creates it the first time it can attach an identity to activity: a form
completion, a webhook, an import. Later activity adds to
the record instead of replacing it.

A **response** is one submission of one form, and a lead may have many.
Completion rate counts responses; pipeline counts leads.

## Vault [#vault]

The environment's private Markdown knowledge base: positioning, product facts,
customer proof, competitor notes, voice. Agents read it before they write. One
crawl of your website starts a [Vault](/platform/vault/overview).

## Agent [#agent]

A named worker with a job, a trigger, and something it writes to. Surface has
four families:

| Family                                                | Reads                                                                                                              | Writes                                                                    | Runs when                      |
| ----------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| [Lead Agents](/platform/lead-agents/overview)         | Lead record, web                                                                                                   | Lead fields, score                                                        | On capture, and on demand      |
| [Campaign Agents](/platform/campaign-agents/overview) | Vault, leads, CRM, web                                                                                             | Drafts, artifacts, CMS entries                                            | On demand, on a schedule       |
| [System Agents](/platform/system-agents/overview)     | Lead record, CRM                                                                                                   | Your CRM and MAP                                                          | On change                      |
| [SAM](/platform/sam/overview)                         | Forms, responses, leads, analytics, workflows, scores, the Vault, and whatever else its enabled capabilities cover | Content and drafts, behind an Approve card. Background jobs are read-only | When you ask, or on a schedule |

## Agent Action [#agent-action]

**The metered unit of agent work.** Your plan is sized in agent actions.

|                            |                                                                          |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Included per month         | 15,000 on Agentic Marketing Operations. Custom above that, none on Basic |
| Beyond the included volume | $0.20 per action                                                         |

The [pricing page](https://www.withsurface.com/pricing) has the current
numbers.

<Note>
  What counts as one action is decided per agent. Check your usage in the app, or
  ask us, before you plan around a specific number.
</Note>

## Artifact [#artifact]

Something an agent produced that a person can review, edit, approve and
publish: a draft post, a comparison page, a generated image. Artifacts keep
version history.

## Segment [#segment]

A saved, live query over leads: &#x2A;"ICP fit ≥ 70, visited pricing in the last 14
days, no meeting booked"*. Campaigns target segments and agents run against
them. Membership updates as records change, so a segment is never a frozen
list.

## Profile [#profile]

What an [AI Visibility](/platform/ai-visibility/overview) scan runs against:
one domain, its positioning, its competitor set, and the prompts you track
against it. Scores, cited sources and per-model breakdowns attach to the
profile.

<Note>
  Two words these docs avoid: &#x2A;*"contact"*&#x2A; (your CRM's object, which Surface
  syncs to rather than owns) and &#x2A;*"campaign"** meaning a channel. A Surface
  campaign is a plan with an audience, an outcome and measurement, see
  [Campaign Agents](/platform/campaign-agents/overview).
</Note>