Glossary¶
Centralized definitions for domain, architectural, and project terminology. Terms defined at level-3 headings (### Term) are automatically linked and shown as tooltips on first mention across the documentation via zensical-glossary.
Documentation and Governance¶
Decision Record¶
A document capturing an architectural, product, design, operational, security, social, or strategic decision, including context, constraints, considered alternatives, chosen approach, and consequences.
Feature Record¶
A specification document defining the context, benchmarks, user interaction flows, visual design, and implementation details for a user-facing or system feature.
RFC 2119¶
A specification standard defining requirement levels for capitalized keywords: MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL.
Conventional Commits¶
A structured commit message convention (type(scope): description) providing explicit, machine-readable version history and automated changelog generation.
Semantic Versioning¶
A software release versioning convention structured as MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, distinguishing breaking API changes, backward-compatible features, and bug fixes.
Practical Software Measurement¶
An objective, information-driven measurement process designed to provide software project managers and engineers with actionable quantitative insights.
ISO/IEC 15939¶
An international standard defining software and systems engineering measurement processes, establishing a common measurement information model from information needs to indicators.
Architecture and Modeling¶
Data-Flow Diagram¶
A visual model tracing how data moves through a system, mapping input ingestion, functional transformations, data stores, and emitted outputs across boundaries.
Use-Case Diagram¶
A visual model depicting interactions between external actors (users, external services) and the discrete actions or services provided by the system.
Functional Requirement¶
A specification of a behavior, service, calculation, data manipulation, or specific business operation that the software system must perform.
Non-Functional Requirement¶
A specification of system-wide quality constraints, including performance, security, reliability, availability, portability, and maintainability thresholds.
Quality Factor¶
An observable, measurable software quality attribute (such as modularity, survivability, operability, or verifiability) used to evaluate design trade-offs.
Class Diagram¶
A static structure diagram describing the classes, interfaces, attributes, methods, and relationships constituting an object-oriented system.
Object Diagram¶
A structural diagram depicting a complete or partial snapshot of instantiated objects and their runtime relationships at a specific point in execution.
Software Licensing and Distribution¶
Permissive License¶
An open-source license (such as MIT or Apache-2.0) that permits unrestricted commercial use, modification, and proprietary distribution, requiring only attribution.
Copyleft¶
A licensing rule (such as GPL or MPL) requiring derivative works or modifications to be distributed under equivalent license terms to preserve open access.
SPDX¶
A standard format and curated registry of short identifiers (such as MIT, Apache-2.0, or GPL-3.0-only) used to express software licenses unambiguously.
AI and Collaboration Guidelines¶
Generative AI¶
Algorithms, large language models, and automated tools used to generate source code, documentation, test suites, or design artifacts under human supervision.
Meat-Proxy¶
An anti-pattern where a human blindly copy-pastes AI outputs or questions back and forth without understanding, reviewing, or taking responsibility for the content.
Design and User Experience¶
Intuitive¶
A heuristic judgment of system usability based on transferred domain knowledge. It describes a user's cognitive state when interface patterns and affordances match their prior mental models, minimizing learning energy.
Design System¶
A coordinated set of visual assets, reusable UI components, and design tokens that standardize user interface styling and construction across platforms.
Wordmark¶
A typographic rendering of a project or brand name, designed with specific font weights, kerning, and styling without standalone symbols.
Interaction Paradigm¶
The foundational conceptual model and grammar (such as point-and-click, modal editing, or command palettes) governing how users interact with a system.
Progressive Disclosure¶
An interaction design pattern sequencing information and actions from simple defaults to advanced controls to reduce initial cognitive load.
Testing and Quality Assurance¶
Test Pyramid¶
A testing framework advocating a broad base of fast unit tests, a middle layer of integration tests, and a narrow top of end-to-end tests.
White-Box Testing¶
A verification method where tests are designed with explicit visibility into internal module logic, branch conditions, and private structures.
Black-Box Testing¶
A verification method where functionality is evaluated strictly against external interfaces, public APIs, or CLI contracts without internal code visibility.
Continuous Integration¶
The software engineering practice of automatically compiling, linting, and testing code whenever commits or pull requests are submitted.
Static Analysis¶
The automated inspection of source code without execution to identify syntax flaws, potential runtime bugs, security issues, and style violations.
Domain Terms¶
Wayland¶
A display server protocol and library for Linux systems where the compositor acts as the display server, managing window composition and input events directly.
Quickshell¶
A QtQuick and QML-based toolkit for building Wayland desktop shells, panels, overlays, and widgets with native compositor integrations.
Hyprland¶
A dynamic tiling Wayland compositor providing IPC sockets, workspace management, and window rules.
Plymouth¶
A boot splash animation system that runs early in the Linux boot process using Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) and Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) before the display server starts.