Glossary
Deplo's vocabulary, one line each - these definitions are also the spelling rules.
Use this page when a Deplo label or status is unclear. The definitions also show the terms used consistently in the dashboard and docs.
| Term | Means |
|---|---|
| Active team | The team you are currently looking at, chosen in the top bar. Every list is filtered by it. |
| Agent | See server agent. Never used on its own in the interface. |
| Alert | Something Deplo tells you about, delivered to a notification channel. Distinct from the Activity trail, which is looked up later. |
| API token | A deplo_ bearer credential that is a principal with its own capabilities, capped by what its creator can still do. |
| App | The deployable unit: a repository, image, archive or Compose file running as a Docker stack behind Traefik. Never called a service or a project. |
| App status | What the control plane last asked to happen: queued, building, active, error, stopping, idle. idle is the stopped state; error means the last deploy failed, not that the app is down. |
| Backup | A schedule: what to copy, where, how often, how many to keep. |
| Backup destination | Where artifacts go. An S3-compatible bucket, or a folder on a server. |
| Backup run | One execution of a schedule, producing one artifact. |
| Basic auth | Username and password in front of every domain of an app. Set under Settings -> Access. |
| Bootstrap token | The single-use token that lets a new server enroll. Hashed at rest, valid about an hour. |
| Build server | A server that compiles images for hosts it does not run on. |
| Capability | One action a member may take. There are 45, and view is the always-on floor. Never called a permission, a scope or a grant. |
| Certificate provider | Where a domain's TLS certificate comes from: none, Let's Encrypt, Cloudflare, or one installed on the server. |
| Connected client | A web AI application that reached Deplo through the OAuth consent screen. |
| Control plane | The panel: the dashboard, the API, the database and the rendering. It never runs Docker. |
| Cron job | A command run on a schedule inside a container, tracked by the agent. |
| Deploy hook | A per-app URL that triggers a deploy. Needs both the URL and a bearer token. |
| Deploy key | What a deploy targets, which is the app's slug. The stack Docker sees is deplo-<key>, and a pull request preview appends __pr-<n>. |
| Deployment | One build and release, with its own logs, status and image. |
| Domain | One routing row, keyed on hostname plus path. |
| Environment | An isolated deploy target inside a Project, with its own apps, branch and variables. |
| Folder | A team-wide grouping with an owner, which nests and can be shared. |
| Framework | What Deplo detected in your repository. Re-derived on every deploy, never stored. |
| Git connection | Stored credentials for one git host, reused by every app deploying from it. |
| Instance admin | A flag on an account that unlocks Servers, Users and the instance settings. Not a team capability. |
| Instance owner | The tier above instance admin, immutable to every hand but its own. |
| MCP server | The endpoint an AI agent connects to, exposing its tools, all of which run against the same schema and the same gates a person gets. |
| Membership | A person's link to a team, carrying a role. |
| Migration source | A server that hosts nothing, installed only to import from another platform. The one server Deplo uninstalls itself from. A migration from another Deplo needs none. |
| Preview | See pull request preview. |
| Preview override | A variable that takes a different value in previews only. |
| Primary domain | The one hostname shown as an app's production URL. Exactly one per app. |
| Primary owner | The founder of a team, immutable to every other hand and transferable only by them. |
| Project | An advanced folder that owns Environments. Never nests, and has no page of its own. |
| Pull request preview | An ephemeral stack for one open pull request, at a deterministic URL, destroyed when it closes. |
| Recovery key | The private half of a backup destination's encryption key. One of only two secrets Deplo will show you. |
| Registration link | A single-use link that lets a new person create an account and their own team. Valid 24 hours. |
| Role | A named capability set owned by a team. Editing one rewrites its members' capabilities immediately. |
| Rollback | Re-running a past deployment's exact image, with current configuration. |
| Secret variable | A write-only, immutable environment value. There is no reveal path. |
| Server | A machine in the fleet. Instance-wide, never team-owned. |
| Server agent | The Go binary on each host, the only thing anywhere that runs Docker. |
| Server health | An observation from the last handshake: provisioning, online, warning, error, offline. A cache, never a gate. |
| Server readiness | A live, never-stored report on whether a host is complete enough to deploy to. |
| Shared variable | A team-owned variable that apps opt into with a link. Scopes only suggest. |
| Storage-only server | A server that holds backups and runs nothing. |
| Team | An isolated workspace owning apps, databases, domains, variables and people. |
| Template | A catalogue entry Deplo turns into an app. A family of one or more variants. |
| Volume | Disk space Deplo creates and keeps for an app. One of three storage kinds, alongside File and Bind. |
Words Deplo does not use
| Not this | Because |
|---|---|
| Service | A Compose service is one container inside a stack. The deployable unit is an App. |
| Permission, scope, grant | The word is Capability. |
| Node, worker, daemon | The word is server agent, or "the owning server". |
| Current team, selected team | The word is active team. |
| Stopped, as a stored value | The stored value is idle. "Stopped" is only the label. |
| Container, group, workspace, for a Project | A Project owns environments; those words do not carry that. |
See also
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