Shared terminology
Use the same words for the same responsibilities.
Plain-language definitions reduce ambiguity across development, leadership, procurement, operations, security, data, and governance conversations.
- Abstraction
- A simpler interface that hides or standardizes some underlying complexity without removing responsibility for correct use.
- Agentic Engineering
- Professional software engineering in which qualified practitioners use agentic AI tools while retaining architectural intent, verification duties, technical accountability, and human decision authority.
- Application
- Software created to serve a specific user need or business outcome.
- Authorization
- The decision about what an authenticated identity is permitted to do.
- Backend as a Service
- An industry term for managed backend capabilities such as database, authentication, storage, APIs, realtime services, and functions.
- Boundary
- A statement of what is in scope, what is out of scope, how the sides connect, and who is responsible.
- Cloud Service Provider
- An organization that supplies one or more cloud services.
- Developer qualification
- A demonstrated readiness outcome showing that a developer completed the defined Ember learning and assessment experience. In this release it does not grant access.
- Environment
- A named operating context with defined software, configuration, data, identities, integrations, controls, users, and purpose.
- Evidence
- Reviewable information that supports a claim about design, implementation, operation, or decision status.
- Golden path
- A supported delivery approach that removes repeated decisions while allowing justified exceptions through an explicit review path.
- Inherited control
- A control an application may rely on only when scope, implementation, responsibility, and evidence genuinely apply to that application.
- Platform
- A managed product combining reusable capabilities, standards, workflows, ownership, and support for a class of applications.
- Shared responsibility
- The division of duties among providers, the platform team, application teams, operations, governance functions, and accountable owners.
- System accreditation
- A human governance decision about a defined system boundary. Developer qualification does not replace it.
- Vibe Coding
- Prompt-led software creation without sufficient engineering understanding, verification, or accountability.