Short meanings, in alphabetical order. Each page of the library also explains its words the first time they appear.
A
Acceptance criteria. Checks that prove an issue or epic is done. A person must be able to test each one.
ADR (architecture decision record). A short file that records a decision, the options, the reason and how to leave. Also called a decision record.
AI agent. An AI coding assistant that reads your project and builds tasks. It does the task in front of it. It does not own the plan.
AGPL. A licence with network copyleft. If you modify the program and let people use it over a network, you must offer them your source.
B
B2B2C. Business to business to consumer. A business pays. Its consumers use the product.
Branch. A separate line of changes in git.
Brand. What people think of when they hear your product name.
Bus factor. The number of people who must leave before a project stalls.
C
CAB (change advisory board). A group that judges risky changes. In git it can be code owners plus approval rules.
Catalogue (product catalogue). A structured description of a product in four layers: Master, ORBITAL, ANDROID and Tech.
Catalogue entry. A small file for one product or service with owner, tier, repos, dependencies and service levels.
Change record. The record of a change: reason, risk, review, checks. In git, the merge request.
CI/CD. Continuous integration and delivery. Automatic steps that test, build and deliver changes.
Commit. One saved step in git, with a message.
Configuration item. Anything that must be managed to deliver a service: a repo, an app, a database.
Copyleft. A licence idea: if you pass on the code, you must pass on the same freedoms.
CRM. Customer relationship management. A system that records leads and customers.
Customer. The person who pays. Often not the user.
D
Decision log. A dated list of decisions with the question, answer, reason and name.
Demo. A short walk-through that shows the product working.
Desired state. What git says should exist.
Drift. Any difference between desired state and actual state.
E
Epic. A whole-product outcome across several repos. Weeks to months. Written by a human.
Epic manager. The human who owns the epics and the roadmap of a product.
Error budget. The amount of failure a service-level target allows.
F
Fit %. How much of your needs a tool already meets. MUST needs count double.
Fix forward. Fix problems with a new change. Do not revert shipped work.
Fork. A full copy of a project that you maintain.
G
Git. A tool that records every change to files.
GitOps. A controller makes a system match what is in git, continuously.
Golden path. The easy, safe, standard way to go from idea to production.
I
IaC (infrastructure as code). Cloud setup written as files in git.
Idempotent. Running it twice gives the same result as running it once.
Incident. An unplanned break or drop in quality of a service.
Integration. A tool from another company that your product uses.
Issue. One task. One agent can finish it in one merge request.
ITIL. A set of practices for managing IT services.
J
Journey (user or customer). The steps a person takes to reach a goal, with thoughts and feelings.
K
KPI (key performance indicator). A number that shows progress toward a goal.
L
Label. A tag on an issue, such as status-blocked.
Licence. The legal paper that says what you may do with code.
M
Merge request (MR). A proposal to add a change to the main branch. Also called a pull request.
Merge train. A queue that tests each merge request on top of the others before it merges.
Milestone. A time-boxed slice of work with a goal and a date.
Mockup. A drawing of a screen before it is built.
O
Open source. Software whose code you may read, change and run under a public licence.
ORBITAL. The catalogue layer for objective, resources, budget, indicators, transport, activities and logistics.
Orphan issue. An issue with no epic.
P
Patch. A small file describing one change to code.
Patch set. A short list of patches applied on top of a pinned upstream version.
Persona. A short profile of a typical person, built from real interviews.
Pipeline. The automatic steps that test and deliver a change.
Product Package. The final assessment of the Developer path. Eight parts.
R
Repository (repo). A folder of files with a full change history.
Roadmap. Epics laid out in order over time.
Runbook. Step-by-step instructions for running or fixing a service.
S
SBOM (software bill of materials). A list of the parts inside software and their licences.
Secret. A password, key or token. Never kept in git. Only its name is.
Service level (SLI, SLO, SLA). An indicator you measure, an objective you aim for, and an agreement you promise.
SPDX id. A standard short name for a licence, such as MIT or Apache-2.0.
Stakeholder. A person or group affected by the product or able to affect it.
T
Tech debt. A promise of future work caused by code you must maintain.
Touch point. Any place where a person meets your product.
U
Upstream. The original project that you adopt or fork.
User. The person who uses the product.
W
Webhook. A message one system sends to another when something happens.
Y
YAML. A plain-text format for settings, written as indented lines.
