Updated August 2, 2026
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 |
| Adapter Message Type | The Message Type a port stamps on a message the moment the adapter releases it to the next step inside the port. Required on a receive port and on the response section of a two-way send port, the two places a message enters the bus. Not a fallback: there is no untyped window. Ports |
| Application | The unit of ownership: holds the twelve kinds of artifact that make up one integration domain, Activity Notifications, Authentications, Constants, Message types, Ports, Maps, Variables, Pipelines, Schemas, Pipeline components, Custom functions, and NuGet packages, plus its own private bus. Deleting it deletes all of them and all of its tracking data. Applications |
| Application Contributor | Per-Application role: edits every artifact and creates snapshots, but cannot delete the Application or apply / delete snapshots. Grow and Enterprise editions. Identity & access |
| Application Owner | Per-Application role with full control of one Application, including assigning Owner, Contributor, or Reader on it and deleting the Application, which takes every artifact, the private bus, and all of its tracking data with it, permanently. Grow and Enterprise editions. Identity & access |
| Application Reader | Per-Application role: views configurations and Tracking, including payloads, but not Authentications or Constants. Grow and Enterprise editions. Identity & access |
| 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 | What a pipeline component does when it stamps a Message Type on a message it emits. It is not a resolution race: the port’s Adapter Message Type has already typed the message at the adapter handoff, and every message a component emits carries a type of its own. 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 |
| 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 belonging to one Application, callable from expressions, map bindings (via art:invoke), and component property values, but never from pipeline component code. Application scoped, so no cross-Application reuse: the same function needed in two Applications is created in each. 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. The source must be XML or JSON; the output can be any format. 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 |
| NuGet package | A third-party .NET library registered on one Application so its pipeline components and custom functions can reference it. Application scoped: two Applications register independently, and may register the same package at different versions. NuGet packages |
| 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 | A named, ordered list of pipeline components, with no built-in stages and no direction of its own. Inbound or outbound describes the position on the port that attaches it, not the pipeline, so the same pipeline can be attached anywhere. Pipelines |
| Pipeline component | A C# class belonging to one Application and placed in a pipeline, written data-driven: its per-message values come from the message body. Application scoped, so no cross-Application reuse, and editing the code propagates to every pipeline that uses it within that Application. Direction-less, like the pipeline that holds it. 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 |
| System Administrator | Deployment-wide role: every Application plus system settings, user and role assignment, and Application creation. Overrides all per-Application roles. Grow and Enterprise editions; Starter’s single built-in account is effectively this role. Identity & access |
| Tracking / Tracking ID | The per-message identity stamped at receive and carried across every hop, and the screen where you follow it. One level per Application, covering all of its ports: Only on Error → Enabled (+ body). No tracking setting on a port. Tracked runs belong to the owning Application and two things end their life: the retention window, and deleting the Application, which removes all of its tracking data permanently, with no snapshot restore. 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.