# 📖 Glossary

> **Terminology and abbreviations used in the DaviesTechLabs homelab**

## A

**ADR (Architecture Decision Record)**
: A document that captures an important architectural decision, including context, decision, and consequences.

**Argo Events**
: Event-driven automation for Kubernetes that triggers workflows based on events from various sources.

**Argo Workflows**
: A container-native workflow engine for orchestrating parallel jobs on Kubernetes.

**Authentik**
: Self-hosted identity provider supporting SAML, OIDC, and other protocols.

## B

**BGE (BAAI General Embedding)**
: A family of embedding models from BAAI used for semantic search and RAG.

**Bounded Context**
: A DDD concept defining a boundary within which a particular domain model applies.

## C

**C4 Model**
: A hierarchical approach to software architecture diagrams: Context, Container, Component, Code.

**Cilium**
: eBPF-based networking, security, and observability for Kubernetes.

**CloudNative-PG**
: Kubernetes operator for PostgreSQL databases.

**CNI (Container Network Interface)**
: Standard for configuring network interfaces in Linux containers.

## D

**DDD (Domain-Driven Design)**
: Software design approach focusing on the core domain and domain logic.

## E

**Embedding**
: A vector representation of text, used for semantic similarity and search.

**Envoy Gateway**
: Kubernetes Gateway API implementation using Envoy proxy.

**External Secrets Operator (ESO)**
: Kubernetes operator that syncs secrets from external stores (Vault, etc.).

## F

**Falco**
: Runtime security tool that detects anomalous activity in containers.

**Flux CD**
: GitOps toolkit for Kubernetes, continuously reconciling cluster state with Git.

## G

**GitOps**
: Operational practice using Git as the single source of truth for declarative infrastructure.

**GPU Device Plugin**
: Kubernetes plugin that exposes GPU resources to containers.

## H

**HelmRelease**
: Flux CRD for managing Helm chart releases declaratively.

**HTTPRoute**
: Kubernetes Gateway API resource for HTTP routing rules.

## I

**InferenceService**
: KServe CRD for deploying ML models with autoscaling and traffic management.

## J

**JetStream**
: NATS persistence layer providing streaming, key-value, and object stores.

## K

**KServe**
: Kubernetes-native platform for deploying and serving ML models.

**Kubeflow**
: ML toolkit for Kubernetes, including pipelines, training operators, and more.

**Kustomization**
: Flux CRD for applying Kustomize overlays from Git sources.

## L

**LLM (Large Language Model)**
: AI model trained on vast text data, capable of generating human-like text.

**Longhorn**
: Cloud-native distributed storage for Kubernetes.

## M

**MessagePack (msgpack)**
: Binary serialization format, more compact than JSON.

**Milvus**
: Open-source vector database for similarity search and AI applications.

**MLflow**
: Platform for managing the ML lifecycle: experiments, models, deployment.

**MinIO**
: S3-compatible object storage.

## N

**NATS**
: Cloud-native messaging system for microservices, IoT, and serverless.

**Node Feature Discovery (NFD)**
: Kubernetes add-on for detecting hardware features on nodes.

## P

**Pipeline**
: In ML context, a DAG of components that process data and train/serve models.

**Premium User**
: User tier with enhanced features (more RAG docs, priority routing).

## R

**RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)**
: AI technique combining document retrieval with LLM generation for grounded responses.

**Reranker**
: Model that rescores retrieved documents based on relevance to a query.

**ROCm**
: AMD's open-source GPU computing platform (alternative to CUDA).

## S

**Schematic**
: Talos Linux concept for defining system extensions and configurations.

**SOPS (Secrets OPerationS)**
: Tool for encrypting secrets in Git repositories.

**STT (Speech-to-Text)**
: Converting spoken audio to text (e.g., Whisper).

**Strix Halo**
: AMD's unified memory architecture for APUs with large GPU memory.

## T

**Talos Linux**
: Minimal, immutable Linux distribution designed specifically for Kubernetes.

**TTS (Text-to-Speech)**
: Converting text to spoken audio (e.g., XTTS/Coqui).

## V

**Valkey**
: Redis-compatible in-memory data store (Redis fork).

**vLLM**
: High-throughput LLM serving engine with PagedAttention.

**VIP (Virtual IP)**
: IP address shared among multiple hosts for high availability.

**Volcano**
: Kubernetes batch scheduler for high-performance workloads (ML, HPC).

**VRM**
: File format for 3D humanoid avatars.

## W

**Whisper**
: OpenAI's speech recognition model.

## X

**XTTS**
: Coqui's multi-language text-to-speech model with voice cloning.

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## Acronyms Quick Reference

| Acronym | Full Form |
|---------|-----------|
| ADR | Architecture Decision Record |
| API | Application Programming Interface |
| BGE | BAAI General Embedding |
| CI/CD | Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment |
| CRD | Custom Resource Definition |
| DAG | Directed Acyclic Graph |
| DDD | Domain-Driven Design |
| ESO | External Secrets Operator |
| GPU | Graphics Processing Unit |
| HA | High Availability |
| HPA | Horizontal Pod Autoscaler |
| LLM | Large Language Model |
| ML | Machine Learning |
| NATS | (not an acronym, named after message passing in Erlang) |
| NFD | Node Feature Discovery |
| OIDC | OpenID Connect |
| RAG | Retrieval-Augmented Generation |
| RBAC | Role-Based Access Control |
| ROCm | Radeon Open Compute |
| S3 | Simple Storage Service |
| SAML | Security Assertion Markup Language |
| SOPS | Secrets OPerationS |
| SSO | Single Sign-On |
| STT | Speech-to-Text |
| TLS | Transport Layer Security |
| TTS | Text-to-Speech |
| UUID | Universally Unique Identifier |
| VIP | Virtual IP |
| VRAM | Video Random Access Memory |

---

## Related Documents

- [ARCHITECTURE.md](ARCHITECTURE.md) - System overview
- [TECH-STACK.md](TECH-STACK.md) - Technology details
- [DOMAIN-MODEL.md](DOMAIN-MODEL.md) - Entity definitions