The terms, in plain words.
Every technical term on this site, defined once.
In plain words
Come across a word on this site you do not know? It is here, explained in plain language.
Technical terms stay English in every language, so they mean the same thing everywhere.
- hash chain
- Each entry stores a fingerprint of the entry before it. Change one entry and every fingerprint after it stops matching.
- verify()
- A function that recomputes the whole chain and reports the first entry that no longer matches.
- SHA-256
- The fingerprint function used. The same input always gives the same 64-character output; a different input never does.
- Merkle root
- One fingerprint that summarises many entries. Publishing it makes even deleting the end of the log detectable.
- ed25519
- A signature scheme. We sign exports and receipts with a private key; anyone can check them with the public key.
- audit log
- The append-only record of every action: what happened, when, and on which source.
- append-only
- Entries can be added but never edited or removed.
- citation
- The pointer an answer carries back to its source: document, page, and match score.
- corpus
- The whole body of documents you have loaded. It stays on your machine.
- chunk
- A small passage of a document. Only cited chunks ever reach an external model.
- embedding
- A numeric representation of a passage, used to find related text. Computed locally.
- hybrid retrieval
- Searching by meaning and by keyword at once, then combining the results.
- MCP
- Model Context Protocol. A local server lets different AI tools share one memory.
- PII masking
- Replacing names, emails and numbers with placeholders before text leaves for a model.
- row-level security
- The database itself decides which rows a user may see, per engagement.
- legal hold
- A role that blocks erasure while a legal obligation to retain applies.
- pseudonymisation
- Storing a per-subject key instead of a name, so records can be linked but not read.
- key destruction
- Deleting that key. The content becomes permanently unreadable while the chain still verifies.
- local-first
- The product runs on your machine. Nothing is uploaded to work.
- trust boundary
- The documented line between what the system protects and what it assumes.