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Glossary

Short, page-anchored definitions for the recurring AUSUS terms. Skim it once when you start; come back when a concept page assumes a word you have not seen yet.

Action​

A named operation an actor can invoke against an entity. v0.1.x ships three kinds — create, transition, update (see Action kinds and the php-dsl reference). Every action runs through the same Invoker chain regardless of kind.

ActionDescriptor​

The JSON shape an action takes on the wire as part of a ViewSchema. Carries the FQN, the localised label, subjectRequired, the input field list, and (for update actions) initialValues for prefill. Full field-by-field reference in ViewSchema wire.

Actor​

The acting principal for an invocation — a Tenant-scoped identity plus a role/permission set. v0.1.x ships one implementation (StubActor) and resolves it per-request from X-Actor-Id / X-Actor-Roles over HTTP. There is no authentication layer; an authenticated gateway is expected to set the headers.

Application​

The bootstrap facade in ausus/standard-stack. Composes the compiler, the SQLite driver and the default runtime; exposes invoke, run, http, projection rendering, and direct accessors to every runtime service. Full reference at Application & ApplicationConfig.

ApplicationConfig​

The typed, immutable fluent builder for Application::create(). Every setter returns a new instance. The companion to Application; full reference at Application & ApplicationConfig.

Audit log​

The kernel-managed table kernel_audit_log to which the runtime appends one row per successful action invocation, in the same database transaction as the row it changed. Schema is fixed by the runtime and not user-extensible in v0.1.x.

BuiltinEffect​

The enum (Create / Transition / Update) the kernel uses to mark an ActionNode as backed by a runtime-shipped effect rather than a custom Effect class. The string values ('kernel.builtin.create', …) are stable wire metadata.

Compiler​

The kernel service that takes a list of Plugin instances and produces a single MetadataGraph. Validation (FQN uniqueness, dangling references, workflow coherence) runs here; the produced graph is content-hashed and immutable. See Concepts · Metadata Graph.

Effect​

The runtime side of an action. Three built-ins ship in v0.1.x — CreateEffect, TransitionEffect, UpdateEffect. Custom effects implement Ausus\Effect and are addressed by FQN in ActionNode::effectClass. The effect is the only layer that mutates state; it runs inside the Invoker's database transaction.

Entity​

A kind of record the application stores. Declared on the DSL via $dsl->entity('name')->fields([...]). The Compiler maps each entity to one SQL table whose name is the FQN with dots replaced by underscores (billing.invoice → billing_invoice). The runtime adds five system fields per entity automatically.

Field​

A column on an entity. Declared with Field::string() / ::integer() / ::datetime() / ::money() / ::enum(...) / ::reference(targetEntityFqn), optionally tagged nullable, default, unique, max, currency, options, label. Type list in DSL reference.

Field reference (relation)​

A typed foreign reference declared with Field::reference('plugin.entity') (RFC-015). Stored as a reference column whose value is the target instance's 26-char identity handle. The target is validated at compile time (a reference to an unregistered entity is a DanglingRelation compile error) and enforced at write time (the persistence driver rejects an id that does not resolve to an existing target row in the active tenant with ReferentialIntegrityViolation — there are no ghost references). References never cross tenant boundaries. A projection can fold the parent's display field into each row via ->projection(..., expand: ['ref_field' => 'target_field']), which adds a {ref_field}_label column to the rendered ViewSchema.

FQN — Fully-Qualified Name​

The dotted, plugin-scoped identifier the framework uses to address graph nodes. Conventions:

NodeFQN shape
Entity{plugin.name}.{entityLocal} — e.g. billing.invoice
Action{entity.fqn}.{actionLocal} — e.g. billing.invoice.create
Policy{entity.fqn}.policy.{actionLocal} — e.g. billing.invoice.policy.create
Workflow{entity.fqn}.lifecycle — e.g. billing.invoice.lifecycle
Projection{entity.fqn}.{projectionLocal} — e.g. billing.invoice.summary

Invoker​

The runtime service that executes an action through the five-step chain: preflight → policy → workflow guard → effect → audit, all inside one database transaction. See Backend · Runtime. Application::invoke() and Application::run() are thin wrappers over it.

MetadataGraph​

The compiled, immutable, content-addressed value the framework runs on. Holds entities, actions, policies, workflows, projections plus a SHA-256 hash that is identical for identical plugins. See Concepts · Metadata Graph.

Plugin​

A class describing a piece of domain. Implements Ausus\Plugin or extends Ausus\DslPlugin. Returns its description from describe() (or composes one via dsl()). The Compiler folds every registered plugin into one MetadataGraph. See Concepts · Plugins.

Policy​

The authorisation contract evaluated before an action's effect. v0.1.x ships one implementation, RoleRequired, applied via ->requireRole('member') on the DSL. Custom policies implement Ausus\Policy. See Concepts · Policies.

Projection​

A named read-shaped view of an entity declared on the DSL via ->projection('summary', fields:, actions:, role:). Compiles to a ProjectionNode; the ProjectionRenderer turns one into a ViewSchema JSON document. Two shapes — list (data.items) and detail (data.item).

Reference​

The value-object identity of an entity instance: { tenantId, entityFqn, identityHandle }. The HTTP wire uses Reference as the subject field on action POSTs. As of RFC-015 it is the single canonical instance-identity value object; Subject is now an alias of it (see Subject).

Renderer​

@ausus/renderer-react — the React 18/19 package that consumes ViewSchema JSON and emits UI. Ships no CSS; ESM-only; React is a peer dep. See Frontend · React renderer.

Runtime​

ausus/runtime-default — the L2 package that contains the Invoker chain (Invoker, PolicyEngine, WorkflowRuntime, EffectDispatcher, DefaultAuditor) plus the ProjectionRenderer. The Application wires it for you; you rarely instantiate it by hand.

Stub actor​

The v0.1.x default Actor implementation — fixed identity + role list, no authentication. Used by ApplicationConfig for CLI invocations and by the Router for HTTP requests (resolved from X-Actor-* headers).

Subject​

The entity-instance identity passed to Policy::evaluate() during the Invoker chain. As of RFC-015, Ausus\Subject is a class_alias of Ausus\Reference — one canonical value object. Existing code keeps working unchanged (new Subject(...), Subject::fromReference(...), ?Subject type hints, instanceof Subject); new code should use Reference.

System field​

A field every entity gets automatically — id, tenant_id, _version, created_at, updated_at. Runtime-managed; not writable from action inputs. id is a 26-character Crockford-base32 ULID; _version is the optimistic-lock token.

Tenant​

The isolation key every entity row carries. v0.1.x is single-tenant per Application instance — to act as another tenant, build another Application. Cross-tenant references (a Reference.tenantId not matching the active tenant) raise TenantBoundaryViolation.

Transition​

The second action kind. Moves the workflow state field from one value to another along a declared arrow (from: '…', to: '…'). May be multi-source via ->addTransition() (or the deprecated alias ->andTransition()). Subject required. See Concepts · Workflows.

Update​

The third action kind, added in v0.2-foundation. Partial-PATCH on a fixed closed list of fields. Cannot patch the workflow state field or any system field. Subject required. See Backend · php-dsl · Action kinds.

ViewSchema​

The JSON wire document /projections/{fqn} returns. Fixed schemaVersion: '1.0.0' and targetProfile: 'react.web.v1' in v0.1.x. Full reference at ViewSchema wire reference.

Workflow​

The state machine attached to an entity by declaring an enum state field and listing transitions over it. Compiled to one WorkflowNode; the runtime enforces "exactly one matching transition per action per current state." See Concepts · Workflows.

Workflow guard​

Step 3 of the Invoker chain. For every action that participates in a workflow, the guard verifies the entity's current state matches a declared source for that action. Failure raises WorkflowStateMismatch; no row is written.