Glossary
Plain-language definitions of the platform, infrastructure and blockchain terms used across these docs. No marketing — just what each thing is and when it matters.
A
AI agent
A program that uses a language model to decide which actions to take, calling tools in a loop until a goal is met, rather than producing a single response.
API key
A token identifying the caller on each request, used to apply quotas, rate limits, and billing.
Archive node
A node that retains the full historical state of a chain, so it can answer queries about balances and contract storage at any past block.
B
C
Compute unit
A normalized measure of how much work a request costs, used to meter usage fairly when different calls take very different effort.
Connection pooling
Reusing a small set of database connections across many requests instead of opening a new one per request.
Container
A process bundled with its filesystem and dependencies so it runs identically wherever it is started.
Cron job
A task run automatically on a fixed schedule, named after the long-standing Unix scheduler.
Custom domain
Serving an application from your own hostname rather than a provider-assigned subdomain.
D
E
F
H
I
J
K
L
M
Mainnet
The live, production network of a blockchain, where transactions involve real assets and are irreversible.
Managed Postgres
A PostgreSQL database run by a provider, which handles provisioning, backups, patching, and failover.
Migration
A versioned change to a database schema, applied in order so every environment converges on the same structure.
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
An open protocol for connecting language models to external tools and data through a uniform interface, so a capability written once works with any compatible client.
O
P
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
A hosting model where the provider runs the servers, operating system, and deployment tooling, so you supply application code and configuration rather than infrastructure.
Private network
An isolated network in which your services reach each other without traffic crossing the public internet.
R
Rate limiting
Capping how many requests a caller may make in a period, protecting shared capacity from any one client.
Rollback
Returning to a previously deployed version, usually because the current one is failing.
RPC node
A blockchain node that accepts remote procedure calls, letting an application read chain state and submit transactions without running a node itself.
S
Secret
A credential — an API key, database password, or signing key — stored encrypted and injected into a process at runtime rather than committed to source control.
Stateless service
A service that keeps no request-specific data in memory or on local disk between requests, so any instance can serve any request.
Structured logging
Emitting logs as machine-parseable records with named fields, rather than free-form sentences.