> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://handbook.sutro.sh/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Judge Terminology

> The core vocabulary used when discussing LLM judges and candidate models.

**LLM-as-a-judge = LLM judge = AI judge = using a non-deterministic, pre-trained model as a proxy for human judgment.** We will use these terms somewhat interchangeably in this handbook.

[Evals](/patterns/evals/approaches) != LLM-as-a-judge. There are a number of methods and tools to evaluate an AI system, and LLM judges are just one of them.

We will use the term **[candidate model](/patterns/evals/static-evals-vs-judges)** to make it clear when we are referring to a model or system that is being evaluated, and to disambiguate it from the judge.