Glossary

A glossary of AI and IT terms from the blog. Each entry has a short definition and, where available, links to related posts.

0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

0-9

2FA

Two-Factor Authentication

A

A2A

Agent-to-Agent

ABAC

Attribute-Based Access Control

ABM

Account-Based Marketing

abstraction tax

cost of extra framework layers vs direct code

ACL

Access Control List

Active Directory

Microsoft directory for users, groups, and access policies

ad-hoc

one-off, without a reusable system

agent mode

mode where the tool acts as an autonomous agent

agentic

agent-like autonomous multi-step behavior

agentic workflows

multi-step flows where an AI agent plans and acts

AHT

Average Handle Time

AI Overview

Google AI summary box above classic search results

AI Overviews

Google AI summary box above classic search results

aiogram

async Python framework for Telegram bots

air-gap

physical or logical isolation from the public internet

air-gapped

network fully isolated from the public internet

Airtable

spreadsheet-database hybrid for lightweight apps

AJAX

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

amoCRM

CRM popular in CIS markets for sales pipelines

ANN

Approximate Nearest Neighbor

AOV

Average Order Value

API

Application Programming Interface

API key

secret token that authenticates API callers

API keys

secret tokens that authenticate API callers

app market

marketplace of apps/extensions

app store

store of apps for a platform

approval flow

multi-step review and approval process

approval-flow

multi-step review and approval process

ARR

Annual Recurring Revenue

ASR

Automatic Speech Recognition

audit log

chronologically recorded trail of who did what

audit trail

verifiable history of actions and changes

B

B2B

Business to Business

B2C

Business to Consumer

backend

server-side logic, APIs and data layer

backoff

growing wait between retries after failures

backup

copy kept for recovery

bare metal

dedicated physical server hardware

baseline

reference measurement before changes

Business Intelligence

big bang

one-shot cutover to the new system at a single moment

Bitrix24

suite with CRM, tasks, chat, and site tools

Black Friday

peak retail shopping day

blue-green

two identical environments; switch traffic between them

boilerplate

repetitive starter code copied with little change

brand graph

graph of brand entities and relations

breaking changes

updates that break existing clients or integrations

broker

message broker between producers and consumers

bus factor

how many people must leave before a project stalls

BYOK

bring your own API key

byok

bring your own API key

C

CAC

customer acquisition cost

canonical URL

preferred page URL that search engines should index

canvas

visual editor canvas for flows or layouts

CAPEX

Capital Expenditure

care plan

ongoing support/maintenance plan

CCPA

California Consumer Privacy Act

CDC

Change Data Capture

CDN

Content Delivery Network

CDP

Customer Data Platform

Celery

Python task queue for background jobs

CES

Customer Effort Score

chain-of-thought

step-by-step reasoning before the final answer

chatbot

conversational bot interface

child theme

WordPress theme that safely overrides a parent theme

Chroma

open-source embedding database for RAG apps

chunk

small text piece indexed for retrieval

chunking

splitting documents into retrieval-friendly pieces

chunks

small text pieces indexed for retrieval

churn

customer/user attrition

CI/CD

Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery

circuit breaker

switch that stops calling a failing dependency for a while

citation accuracy

citations point to the right place

CLI

Command Line Interface

CLS

Cumulative Layout Shift

CMS

Content Management System

code review

peer check of a change before it is merged

COGS

Cost of Goods Sold

Confluence

Atlassian wiki for team documentation

consumer

queue/stream consumer

contact form

web form for inbound messages

containerization

packaging apps into portable containers

context window

maximum text a model can process at once

control plane

plane that manages and configures the system

Core Web Vitals

Google metrics for loading, interactivity, and visual stability

CORS

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing

cosine similarity

score of how close two vectors point in the same direction

CPA

Cost Per Acquisition

CPC

Cost Per Click

CPM

Cost Per Mille

CPQ

Configure, Price, Quote

crawl budget

how many URLs a crawler will fetch

CRM

Customer Relationship Management

CRO

Conversion Rate Optimization

cross-encoder

rerank model that scores query and document together

CSAT

Customer Satisfaction Score

CSP

Content Security Policy

CSRF

Cross-Site Request Forgery

CTA

Call To Action

CTR

Click-Through Rate

cutover

moment when traffic switches to the new system

Computer Vision

CVE

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures

CVSS

Common Vulnerability Scoring System

CWV

Core Web Vitals

D

daemon

background system process

dashboard

metrics/status panel

DAST

Dynamic Application Security Testing

data pipeline

automated flow that moves and transforms data

data residency

requirement to keep data in a specific country/region

data warehouse

central store of cleaned historical data for analytics

DAU

Daily Active Users

DBMS

Database Management System

DDoS

Distributed Denial of Service

dead letter

queue for messages that failed processing repeatedly

definition of done

checklist that marks work complete

DevOps

Development and Operations

DIY

Do It Yourself

DKIM

DomainKeys Identified Mail

Deep Learning

DLP

Data Loss Prevention

DMARC

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance

DMP

Data Management Platform

DNS

Domain Name System

downtime

period when the service is unavailable

DPA

Data Processing Agreement

DPIA

Data Protection Impact Assessment

dry run

rehearsal migration without switching production

dry-run

rehearsal migration without switching production

DWH

Data Warehouse

E

e-commerce

online selling of goods or services

E-E-A-T

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness

EBITDA

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization

edge case

rare input or scenario that breaks the happy path

edge cases

rare inputs or scenarios that break the happy path

EDI

Electronic Data Interchange

EDR

Endpoint Detection and Response

EEAT

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness

Eloquent

Laravel ORM for database access

embed

embedded snippet or integration

embedding

numeric vector that captures text meaning

embeddings

numeric vectors that capture text meaning

endpoint

specific API URL that accepts requests

EOL

end of life / end of support

ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning

ESP

Email Service Provider

ETL

Extract, Transform, Load

evals

quality checks and test suites for model outputs

F

FaaS

Function as a Service

fair-code

source-available license with commercial use limits

faithfulness

how well an answer sticks to the retrieved sources

fallback

backup path used when the primary option fails

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

FastAPI

modern Python framework for APIs

FCR

First Contact Resolution

feature flag

switch that turns a feature on/off without redeploy

feature flags

toggles to enable features gradually

few-shot

prompting with a few examples

Filament

Laravel admin panel builder

fine-tune

train a model further on domain data

fine-tuning

additional training of a model on domain data

frontend

client-side UI of a site or app

FTE

full-time equivalent headcount

FTP

File Transfer Protocol

full-time

full work capacity

function calling

model returning structured calls to functions

G

GDPR

General Data Protection Regulation

generative engine optimization

optimizing content to appear in AI search answers

generative engines

AI search/answer engines

GEO

Generative Engine Optimization

glue

integration layer that connects systems without owning business logic

glue code

thin code that only connects systems and APIs

glue-code

thin code that only connects systems and APIs

GMV

Gross Merchandise Value

GPT

Generative Pre-trained Transformer

GPU

Graphics Processing Unit

GraphQL

query language for APIs with a typed schema

GraphRAG

RAG that combines graph relations with vector search

greenfield

new project built from scratch, no legacy constraints

grounding

answers anchored to sources

gRPC

high-performance RPC framework over HTTP/2

GSC

Google Search Console

GTM

Google Tag Manager

guardrails

rules and filters that keep AI outputs safe and on-policy

GUI

Graphical User Interface

H

High Availability

hallucination

model invents unsupported facts

handoff

pass control to a human agent

happy path

main success scenario without errors or edge cases

hardening

security baseline: updates, least privilege, locked configs

headless

backend CMS/API without a built-in public frontend

HIPAA

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

hit rate

share of requests served from cache

hit-rate

share of requests served from cache

horizontal scaling

scale by adding more instances

how-to

step-by-step instructional content

HSM

Hardware Security Module

HSTS

HTTP Strict Transport Security

HTTPS

HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure

HubSpot

CRM and marketing platform for inbound growth

human review

manual check by a person

human-in-the-loop

human approval before risky agent actions

hybrid search

keyword plus vector search together

I

IaaS

Infrastructure as a Service

IAM

Identity and Access Management

IDE

Integrated Development Environment

idempotency

repeating a request does not change the outcome again

idempotent

safe to repeat without duplicate side effects

if-then

conditional if → then rule

iframe

embedded HTML frame

IMAP

Internet Message Access Protocol

in-house

done by the company's own team

Inertia

bridge between Laravel backend and Vue/React frontend

inference

running a trained model to get predictions

INP

Interaction to Next Paint

intent

user intent in a dialog

IOPS

Input/Output Operations Per Second

IoT

Internet of Things

iPaaS

Integration Platform as a Service

IRR

Internal Rate of Return

J

Jira

Atlassian tool for issues, sprints, and delivery tracking

JIT

Just In Time

JSON Schema

spec that describes and validates JSON structure

JSON-LD

JSON for Linking Data

JWT

JSON Web Token

K

knowledge base

structured repository of answers/docs

knowledge graph

network of entities and relations for structured facts

KPI

Key Performance Indicator

L

landing page

page built for a single conversion goal

landing pages

pages built for conversion goals

LangChain

framework for building LLM applications

LangGraph

framework for stateful AI agent workflows

latency

delay before a response arrives

Load Balancer

LCP

Largest Contentful Paint

lead scoring

ranking leads by likelihood to buy

least privilege

grant only the minimum needed access

Let's Encrypt

free automated TLS certificate authority

Lighthouse

Chrome audit for performance, accessibility, and SEO

Livewire

Laravel library for dynamic interfaces without SPA

LlamaIndex

framework for connecting LLMs to private data

LLM

Large Language Model

LLM API

HTTP API to call a large language model

LM Studio

desktop app to download and chat with local LLMs

lock-in

hard to leave a vendor or stack without costly rewrite

long context

model that can take a very large prompt in one go

long polling

client waits on an open request until the server has news

long-context

model that can take a very large prompt in one go

LoRA

Low-Rank Adaptation

low-code

building apps mostly visually, with some custom code

LTS

long-term support release

LTV

lifetime value of a customer

M

Mailchimp

email marketing and audience automation platform

managed VPS

VPS where the provider handles OS updates and basics

MAP

Marketing Automation Platform

marketing hub

marketing CRM hub/module

MAU

Monthly Active Users

MCP

Model Context Protocol

MDM

Master Data Management

Memcached

in-memory key-value cache for fast lookups

MFA

Multi-Factor Authentication

middleware

code layer between request and business logic

Machine Learning

mobile-first

design and CSS start from the phone layout upward

MRR

Monthly Recurring Revenue

MSA

Master Service Agreement

mu-plugin

WordPress must-use plugin loaded for every site

mu-plugins

WordPress must-use plugins loaded for every site

multi-hop

multi-step retrieval or reasoning

multi-tenant

shared platform with isolated customer data per tenant

multitenancy

architecture where one app instance serves many isolated tenants

must-have

required capability or requirement

MVP

Minimum Viable Product

N

N+1

N+1 query problem

n+1

N+1 query problem

n8n

open-source workflow automation platform

NDA

non-disclosure agreement

NLG

Natural Language Generation

NLP

Natural Language Processing

NLU

Natural Language Understanding

no-code

building apps with visual tools, little or no programming

NoSQL

Not Only SQL

NPS

Net Promoter Score

NPV

Net Present Value

O

OAuth

Open Authorization

object cache

fast store for computed objects (often Redis/Memcached)

observability

logs, metrics and traces to understand system behavior

OCR

Optical Character Recognition

off-site

SEO signals from other sites (links, mentions)

OIDC

OpenID Connect

OKR

Objectives and Key Results

OLA

Operational Level Agreement

OLAP

Online Analytical Processing

Ollama

tool to run local open-weight LLMs on your machine

OLTP

Online Transaction Processing

on-call

rotation where engineers respond to incidents outside office hours

on-prem

software hosted in your own infrastructure

on-premise

software hosted in your own infrastructure

Open Graph

meta tags that control link previews in social apps

open source

software with publicly available source code

open weights

model weights you can download and run yourself

open-source

software with publicly available source code

open-weight

model weights you can download and run yourself

OpenCart

open-source PHP e-commerce platform

OPEX

operating expenses

opt-in

user must explicitly agree before you act or message them

orchestration

coordinating multiple services or workflow steps

orchestrator

component that coordinates steps/services

ORM

Object-Relational Mapping

out-of-stock

item unavailable for sale

overhead

extra cost beyond useful work

overlap

shared tokens between adjacent chunks

OWASP

Open Web Application Security Project

P

PaaS

Platform as a Service

page builder

visual editor that builds pages from blocks

PageSpeed

Google tools and scores for page load performance

PageSpeed Insights

Google report with lab and field speed metrics for a URL

part-time

partial work capacity

payload

body/data of a request or message

PCI

Payment Card Industry

PCI DSS

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard

PEFT

Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning

pgvector

PostgreSQL extension for vector search

PHI

Protected Health Information

PHP-FPM

PHP FastCGI Process Manager for serving PHP apps

PII

Personally Identifiable Information

pillar page

hub page that covers a topic and links to related posts

pillar pages

hub pages that cover topics and link to related posts

Pinecone

managed vector database for similarity search

pipeline

sequence of processing stages

PKI

Public Key Infrastructure

plugin

installable extension module

POC

Proof of Concept

PoC

proof of concept / pilot

polling

periodically asking for updates

Polylang

WordPress plugin for multilingual content

POS

Point of Sale

PPC

Pay Per Click

pre-render

generate HTML ahead of the user request

pre-training

large-scale training of a model before task fine-tuning

price-performance

value relative to cost and speed

production

live environment serving real users

prompt caching

reuse of a cached prompt prefix to cut cost and latency

prompt engineering

crafting instructions so the model answers reliably

prompt injection

attack that manipulates model behavior via input

proof-of-concept

small pilot to prove feasibility

PWA

Progressive Web App

Q

Qdrant

vector database for similarity search

QLoRA

Quantized Low-Rank Adaptation

query expansion

broaden a query to improve recall

queue mode

execution via a background job queue

R

RAG

Retrieval-Augmented Generation

RAID

Redundant Array of Independent Disks

rate limit

cap on how many requests are allowed per time window

rate limiting

enforcing a cap on requests per time window

RBAC

Role-Based Access Control

RCE

Remote Code Execution

RDS

Relational Database Service

real-time

processed with minimal delay

regression

bug where a previously working feature breaks again

rerank

reorder search results by relevance

reranker

model that reorders search hits by relevance

reranking

reordering search results by relevance

REST

Representational State Transfer

REST API

HTTP API that exposes resources via URLs and verbs

restore

recover data from backup/snapshot

retainer

fixed monthly fee for ongoing support

retention

keeping users/customers over time

retrieval

finding relevant context before generation

retry

automatic repeat of a failed request or job

reverse proxy

front server that routes requests to backends

RFM

Recency, Frequency, Monetary

Reinforcement Learning

RLHF

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

roadmap

planned product timeline

ROI

Return on Investment

rollback

revert to a previous working version after a failed change

ROMI

Return on Marketing Investment

router

routes requests or dialog turns

RPA

Robotic Process Automation

RPO

Recovery Point Objective

RSS

Really Simple Syndication

RTO

Recovery Time Objective

runbook

step-by-step playbook for incidents and operations

S

SaaS

Software as a Service

sales hub

sales CRM hub/module

sales ops

operations that support the sales process

Salesforce

enterprise CRM cloud platform

SAML

Security Assertion Markup Language

sandbox

isolated environment for safe experiments and tests

SAST

Static Application Security Testing

SBOM

Software Bill of Materials

SCA

Software Composition Analysis

scheduler

component that schedules jobs

SCIM

System for Cross-domain Identity Management

SDK

Software Development Kit

self-host

run software on your own servers

self-hosted

software you run on your own servers

self-hosting

running software on your own servers

SEM

Search Engine Marketing

semantic search

search by meaning, not exact keyword match

semver

versioning as MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH for compatibility signals

Sentry

error monitoring and performance tracing for apps

SEO

Search Engine Optimization

SERP

Search Engine Results Page

server-side

logic that runs on the server, not in the browser

shadow mode

run a new path in parallel without affecting live answers

sharding

splitting data across shards

SIEM

Security Information and Event Management

SKU

Stock Keeping Unit

SLA

Service Level Agreement

SLI

Service Level Indicator

SLO

Service Level Objective

SMB

Small and Medium Business

SMS

Short Message Service

SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

snapshot

point-in-time copy of state

SOC

Security Operations Center

SOP

Standard Operating Procedure

SPA

Single Page Application

SPF

Sender Policy Framework

SQLi

SQL Injection

SSE

Server-Sent Events

SSG

Static Site Generation

SSH

Secure Shell

SSL

Secure Sockets Layer

SSO

Single Sign-On

SSR

Server-Side Rendering

stack trace

call stack dump shown when an error occurs

staging

pre-production environment for final checks

stateful

keeps session or workflow state between requests

stateless

each request is handled without server-side session memory

storefront

customer-facing shop UI

story points

relative effort estimate used in agile planning

strangler

gradually replace a legacy system by routing traffic piece by piece

strangler fig

gradually replace a legacy system by routing traffic piece by piece

structured output

model response forced into a fixed schema (JSON etc.)

STT

Speech To Text

system prompt

hidden instructions that steer the model for a task

T

T&M

time and materials billing

TCO

Total Cost of Ownership

tech debt

shortcuts in code that cost extra work later

technical debt

shortcuts in code that cost extra work later

template hierarchy

order WordPress resolves templates

tenant

isolated customer account in a shared platform

thin content

pages with little unique value for users or search

throughput

work completed per unit time

Tilda

block-based website and landing page builder

time-to-market

how fast a product reaches customers

time-to-value

time until the customer gets real value

timeout

max wait before aborting

TLS

Transport Layer Security

tokenizer

splits text into model tokens

tool calling

model invoking external tools or APIs

top-k

keep only the k most likely next tokens when sampling

TTFB

Time To First Byte

TTS

Text To Speech

U

UAT

User Acceptance Testing

User Interface

UI-kit

reusable set of UI components and styles

unmanaged VPS

VPS where you fully manage the OS and stack yourself

upsell

selling a higher-tier offer

uptime

share of time a service stays available

USP

Unique Selling Proposition

UTM

Urchin Tracking Module

User Experience

V

VDS

Virtual Dedicated Server

vector db

database for similarity search over embeddings

vector search

finding nearest neighbors in embedding space

vector store

database optimized for similarity search over embeddings

vendor lock

hard to leave a vendor without costly rewrite

vendor lock-in

hard to leave a vendor without costly rewrite

vendor-lock

hard to leave a vendor without costly rewrite

VPC

Virtual Private Cloud

VPN

Virtual Private Network

VPS

Virtual Private Server

W

WAF

Web Application Firewall

Wagtail

Django CMS for editors and content teams

Webflow

visual website builder with hosting and CMS

webhook

HTTP callback when an event happens

webhooks

HTTP callbacks when events happen

websocket

persistent bidirectional web connection

white-label

product rebranded under another brand

widget

embedded UI component

worker

background job processor

workflow automation

chaining steps and tools without manual handoffs

WPML

WordPress plugin for multilingual sites

X

XDR

Extended Detection and Response

XSS

Cross-Site Scripting

Y

Yoast SEO

WordPress plugin for on-page SEO checks and sitemaps

Z

Zapier

SaaS that connects apps with no-code automations

Zendesk

customer support and helpdesk platform

Zero Block

Tilda freeform block editor for custom layouts

zero-downtime

deploy/migrate without service outage

zero-shot

prompting without task-specific examples

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