Glossary
The platform’s vocabulary is small but load-bearing, and a few terms deliberately do not mean what they mean elsewhere. Each entry links to the article that owns the full story.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Adapter | The protocol connector a port uses to talk to the outside world, SQL, SFTP, API, Scheduler, and the rest. One article per protocol; Listener and Caller variants live together. Adapters |
| Administrator | The role with access to every Application plus system settings. Grow and Enterprise editions; Starter’s single account is effectively this role. Identity & access |
| Application | The unit of ownership: holds the ports, pipelines, maps, message types, and other artifacts of one integration domain. Applications |
| Authentication | A named, encrypted credential object referenced by ports, one secret, stored once, used by many ports. One Authentication shape per adapter type. Authentications |
| Bus | The purpose-built message exchange at the platform’s center. Receive ports publish onto it; subscriptions select from it. Architecture overview |
| Canonical type | Your own neutral message type that partner formats are normalized into on arrival, so the estate’s logic speaks one language. Canonical data model |
| Classification | How an incoming message gets its message type: a pipeline component decides, or the receive port’s Publish Message Type Fallback applies. Message types |
| Constant | A named configuration value with one value per deployment, re-valued at snapshot import, which is how environments differ. {{Constant.Name}}. Constants |
| Contributor | The per-Application role: sees and changes only the Applications it has been granted. Grow and Enterprise editions. Identity & access |
| Countdown loop | The shipping pattern for strictly serial iteration: a per-instance counter and a self-republishing send port walk a collection one tracked message at a time. Countdown loop |
| Custom function | A named C# function callable from expressions, map bindings (via art:invoke), and component property values, but never from pipeline component code. Custom functions |
| Edition | Starter, Grow, or Enterprise, same platform, different capability set and metering. Comparison |
| Expression | Any string containing {{…}} tokens, resolved by one engine everywhere a string can be typed, subscriptions, bindings, adapter fields. Expressions & bindings |
| Flow | One business movement of data end to end, the unit you build, test, migrate, and reason about. Informal but used throughout. |
| Loopback port | A send port that publishes its result back onto the bus instead of delivering externally, the building block of chained and looping flows. Loopback port |
| Map | An XSLT 3.0 transformation (Saxon HE) run in a port’s flow, XML, JSON, or CSV in; XML, JSON, CSV, or TXT out. Maps |
| Message type | The name a message carries on the bus, not a schema, not a contract. The coarse routing key, and the home of promotions. Message types |
| Null port | A send port that runs its stages and then discards, a clean, zero-setup terminator for messages with no further use. Null port |
| Pipeline | An ordered list of pipeline components with no built-in stages; the stage it runs at, inbound or outbound, lives on the port that attaches it. Pipelines |
| Pipeline component | A C# class saved in the platform and placed in a pipeline stage, written data-driven: its per-message values come from the message body. Pipeline components |
| Port | The unit of connection: receive ports bring messages in and publish; send ports subscribe and deliver. Ports are started and stopped, never deployed, and configuration takes effect immediately. Ports |
| Promotion | A value lifted from the payload by the message type’s definition so routing can see it, referenced message-type-qualified: {{Promoted.Order.Region}}. Message types |
| Publish | What a receive port does to a message: places it on the bus, typed and promoted, with no destination. The word means nothing else here, ports are not “published.” |
| Schema | An optional validation artifact attached where bad payloads must not pass. Schemas validate; they do not define types. Schemas |
| Snapshot | A portable capture of an Application’s (or the environment’s) configuration, the promotion seam between environments, with secrets password-encrypted and the password never stored. Snapshots |
| Subscription | A send port’s standing offer: an expression over type and promoted values; every published message that matches gets delivered. The only wiring that exists. Send port |
| Tracking / Tracking ID | The per-message identity stamped at receive and carried across every hop, and the screen where you follow it. Levels per port: Only on Error → Enabled (+ body). Tracking |
| Variable | A named working value defined on an Application and instantiated per flow instance, written by ports and pipeline components, readable in expressions. {{Variable.Name}}. Variables |
Three traps for experienced ears. A message type is a name, not a schema. Publish applies to messages, never to ports or configuration. And the bus is the platform’s own exchange, if you arrived from BizTalk, the full translation table is in Artifact translation.