DorrisGlossary
The words that sound scarier than they are, each one in plain English. Free, whether or not you buy anything.
No word here matches that. Try fewer letters.
- agent A program you talk to in plain English that can read and change files on your computer, run commands, and tell you what it did.
- API The doorway one program uses to ask another program for something, without a human clicking anything.
- API key A long string of characters that proves a program is allowed to use a service on your behalf.
- backup A separate copy of your data, kept somewhere else, that you have actually restored from at least once.
- Claude Code A tool that lets you work with an AI coding agent directly on the files in a folder on your own computer.
- CLI A program you run by typing its name and a few words, instead of clicking buttons.
- client id and client secret The pair of values that identify an app you created: the id says which app it is, the secret proves you are the one running it.
- commit One saved snapshot of your project's files, with a short note saying what changed and why.
- configuration file A file of settings that tells a tool how to behave, instead of code that tells the computer what to do.
- custom app An app you create for your own store and nobody else's, which is what lets software you built read your own data.
- database The filing cabinet your app keeps its data in, organized so it can find one record instantly instead of reading everything.
- dependency A piece of software somebody else wrote that your project uses, so you do not have to build it yourself.
- deploy To put your app somewhere that stays running, so it keeps working when your own computer is closed.
- deploy log The running commentary of one attempt to put your app online, and the first thing to read when a deploy fails.
- environment variable A setting handed to your app when it starts, kept outside the code so the value never has to be written into a file you share.
- free tier The free level of a paid service: genuinely free, and shaped to be enough to try and not enough to run on.
- git The tool that keeps every saved version of your project's files, so you can see what changed and go back to how things were.
- GitHub A website that stores a copy of your project's version history online, so it is not only on your laptop.
- GraphQL One way a program asks an API a question, where the question spells out exactly which fields you want back.
- host A company that runs your app on its computer, so the app keeps working when yours is switched off.
- license key A code that proves you bought something, and unlocks the copy you are running.
- localhost The address that means this computer: an app there is running on your own machine, and nobody else can reach it.
- log The running diary your app writes about what it did, so you can find out what happened after it happened.
- markdown Plain text with a few punctuation conventions that turn into headings, lists and bold when something displays it.
- MCP A standard way to connect an AI agent to an outside service, so it can read from that service or act in it.
- migration A saved instruction that changes the shape of your database, such as adding a column or renaming a table, and stays in your project for good.
- Node The program that lets JavaScript run on your computer instead of inside a web browser.
- npm The tool that downloads and tracks the outside code your project depends on.
- outage A stretch of time when the live app is not working for the people trying to use it.
- port A numbered door on a computer: a program waits at one number so other programs know where to knock.
- process One running copy of a program, which your computer numbers so it can be told apart from the others.
- production The copy of your app that real people actually use, with real data in it.
- prompt The instructions you type to an AI agent: what you want, what it needs to know, and where to stop.
- prompt injection Text written into a message or document to give orders to whatever AI reads it, rather than to be read by a person.
- push To send the changes you have saved on your computer up to the copy of your project stored online.
- query A question put to a database, and the saved question sitting behind every list and count on a screen.
- read-only Permission to look at something without permission to change it.
- repository The project folder that git is tracking: your code and notes, not your live data.
- roll back To put the previous working version of your app back in front of customers, before anyone has worked out what went wrong.
- rules file A file at the top of your project that tells your agent how to behave in this project.
- SaaS Software you rent by the month instead of owning, which is how most business tools are sold.
- sandbox A copy of something where breaking it costs nothing, because nothing real is connected to it.
- schema The written description of what your database is allowed to hold: which tables exist, and what goes in each column.
- scope One named permission you hand an app when you connect it to your store, such as read orders: the app can do that and nothing else.
- secret Any value that proves you are you, such as a key, a token or a password, and anyone holding it can use it as you.
- server A program that sits waiting for requests and answers them, on your laptop or on a rented computer.
- session One continuous stretch of work with your agent, which remembers what was said inside it and nothing from before it.
- subagent A helper an agent starts to do one job, which knows only what it was told and then disappears.
- subscription vs API key Your paid plan powers the agent you talk to; if the app you build ever calls an AI of its own, that needs its own API key with its own prepaid credit.
- terminal A window where you type commands instead of clicking, and text comes back.
- test A small piece of code whose only job is to check that another piece still does what it is supposed to do.
- token Either a secret string that proves who you are, or the unit an AI model's usage is measured in: two different things, same word.
- transactional email Mail your software sends to one person because of something that happened, using an account built for software rather than a person.
- type check An automatic read-through of your code that catches a whole category of mistakes before the app is ever run.
- usage limit A ceiling on how much you can ask your AI assistant to do in a stretch of time, after which it stops you until it resets.
- web app Software you open in a browser at an address, rather than something you install on a computer.
- webhook A web address you hand to a service so it can call you the instant something happens.
- zip file A whole folder squeezed into one file so it can be sent, and opened back out into a folder at the other end.