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Glossary

About 1 min

Glossary

ECHO

Eventually Consistent Hierarchical Object Store supporting multiple concurrent writers and latent offline writers.

HALO

A protocol, application, and SDK for managing a decentralized user identity for end users and developers.

MESH

The set of peer networking technologies behind ECHO, HALO and KUBE.

KUBE

A reslilient, self-contained set of services for hosting and supporting decentralized applications.

Space

An ECHO replication domain containing objects which all the peers in the space replicate continuously.

Object

A unit of data in a space, a bag of properties and values with a type and identity.

Signaling service

A service provided by DXOS KUBEs which helps peers locate each other on the network and establish peer-to-peer connections.

Invitation Code

A special generated code or URL containing one which is used for peers to identify each other when joining a space.

Authorization Code

A second factor provided to the invited member by the inviter to verify their identity when joining a space.

Space Key

A value identifying a particular space.

Identity

Represents an agent or actor in the system.

Device

A running instance of the DXOS Client represents a device on the network. Every browser profile acts as a device. A CLI application is it's own device. HALO replicates identity and credential information across devices securely and automatically and supports device revocation.

Seed Phrase

Also known as a paper key. A string of values that make it possible to recover an identity in case of a lost device.

Snapshot

A flat representation of a specific state of an ECHO space. An ECHO space is made of feeds of mutations which are collapsed into a snapshot for the purposes of catching up a peer or downloading the state of the database without the log of changes.

Epoch

A specific point in time when the members of a space agree to drop or compress history older than a certain point in time. To call an epoch, peers periodically agree on a specific snapshot to refer to as the beginning of the current epoch. This mechanism allows ECHO spaces to control their size on disk and on the wire.

PWA

Progressive Web Appopen in new window.

Shell

The shell implements a few generic UI flows for managing spaces, membership, and identity. The shell can be invoked by the dxos client API and is rendered in an iframe, minimizing impact to the consuming application.