# Rumata, in plain language

A shared vocabulary for people building the product and developers extending it.

Source: https://docs.rumata.dev/guides/glossary
Reviewed: 2026-09-29

<a id="building"></a>

## Building blocks

| Term | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Project | The owner of application resources and collaboration state. |
| Factory | A workspace for building and iterating inside a project. |
| Application | The website or product people use, built in a factory inside a project. |
| Frontend | The interface people use in a browser. |
| Preview | The product under development, running in a development environment. |
| Frontend Site | The published frontend product. |
| Frontend Deployment | One accepted attempt to publish or replace its version. |
| Development machine | The environment running development services and preview. |
| Activity | A reusable backend operation a workflow can invoke. |
| Workflow | A connected process made of triggers and steps. |
| Trigger | The event or request that begins a workflow. |

<a id="data"></a>

## Data and access

| Term | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Database | Structured records organized in tables. |
| Table / row / column | A collection, one record, and one field of a record. |
| Project storage | Persistent file storage owned by a project. |
| Object path | A file’s address within a storage. |
| Reserved storage | Capacity committed to the storage. |
| Used storage | File bytes actually occupying that capacity. |
| Secret | A protected credential or value used by an authorized integration. |
| Group | A way to manage access for members together. |
| Account-wide permission | A grant inherited by all projects under the [billing account](https://docs.rumata.dev/guides/billing#account). |

<a id="usage"></a>

## Usage and history

| Term | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Billing account | Commercial owner of subscriptions, allowances, and consumption. |
| Allowance | A declared amount or capacity available under the plan. |
| Admission | The check that accepts work before dispatch. |
| Workflow execution | One admitted top-level invocation, including its child work. |
| Workflow version history | Retained earlier definitions of a workflow. |
| Execution history | Retained evidence from workflow runs. |
| Suspension | Stopping active compute while retaining supported recovery state. |
| Recovery window | The period during which a supported recovery operation remains available. |

<a id="technical-words"></a>

## Common technical words

| Term | Plain-language explanation |
| --- | --- |
| API | A structured interface that software uses to communicate. |
| JSON | A text format for structured fields, lists, and values. |
| MCP | A protocol through which agents discover and use tools and resources. |
| HTTP endpoint | An address plus request method that software calls. |
| Webhook | An external service’s HTTP notification to your application. |
| Cron | A compact way to express a repeating schedule. |
| Synchronous | Wait for the operation’s result in the request. |
| Asynchronous | Accept work now and check its result later. |
| Deployment | Preparing and activating a version for its target environment. |

## Related guides

- [Set up your account](https://docs.rumata.dev/guides/getting-started)
- [How Rumata fits together](https://docs.rumata.dev/guides/architecture)
- [Understand plans and usage](https://docs.rumata.dev/guides/billing)
- [Documentation for AI agents](https://docs.rumata.dev/guides/agents)