Glossary

Alarm. A notification raised by a flow (with the Alarm component) or by the system, shown in the designer's Alarms panel and optionally sent by e-mail or as a web push notification. Alarm definitions are kept in the repository.

Assistant. The AI assistant in the designer (Viaducta AI). It builds, explains, changes and fixes flows.

Auto start. A flow setting: the flow starts when its environment starts, optionally only after other flows it depends on are running.

Binding. A configuration value with placeholders in braces, such as {input.Customer.Name}, compiled with the flow and evaluated for every message. See Configuration values.

Certificate. A certificate stored in the repository of an environment and used by components for TLS or signing.

Cloud bridge. A small program installed at a remote site. It connects out to Viaducta and makes network routes work in both directions, so flows reach systems at that site without a VPN.

Component. One plugin placed in a flow, with its own configuration.

Connection. The link from an output pin of one component to an input pin of another; the path a record takes.

Controller. The process that runs an execution environment: it owns the repository, starts and supervises the hosts, and starts auto-start flows. See Architecture.

Data monitor. A designer view that shows the records and metadata crossing a component's pins while the flow runs.

Database link. A named connection to a database, stored in the repository of an environment and used by the database components.

Debugger. Runs a flow in debug mode, pauses it at breakpoints on components and in C# scripts, and lets you inspect the paused message.

Execution environment. A place where flows run, such as development, test or production, with its own controller, repository and hosts.

Expression settings. Named packages of settings in the repository of an environment. A configuration field reads one with =Package.Setting.

Flow. A set of connected components that does one job, compiled into its own .NET assembly.

Host. The process that compiles and runs flows. A controller starts as many hosts as the hosting strategies need.

Hosting strategy. How flows share host processes: Private host (a process per flow), Tag based host (flows with the same hosting tag share a process) or Shared host (all flows in one process).

Keep alive. A flow setting, also declared by listener plugins, that keeps a flow running after its start calls return.

Manager. The designer's backend: the web API, sign-in, the AI assistant and the MCP endpoint. One Manager serves every environment of its tenants.

MCP. Model Context Protocol. External AI agents such as Claude Code connect to Viaducta through its MCP endpoint.

Metadata. The data that travels with each record: correlation id, session id and entries added by components.

Namespace. The .NET namespace a flow and its types are compiled into.

Network route. A named route through a cloud bridge, from Viaducta to a system at a remote site or the other way.

Pin. A connection point of a component: input, output, start, continue, no data, error, timeout and a few others. See Pins and connections.

Plugin. A kind of building block (Timer, Sql query, Http client, C# script). Each plugin has a reference page under Plugins.

Plugin port. The component that makes a flow publishable as a plugin. See Plugin port.

Record. One message's data, an instance of a type.

Repository. The files of an execution environment: flows, types, expression settings, database links, certificates, network routes, alarm definitions and hosting tags, versioned with Git.

Route id. A name on a connection. Components such as the Decision router send a record only to the connections with a matching route id.

Tenant. An organisation using Viaducta. A tenant has one or more execution environments and its own users.

Type. The structure of a record: named, typed fields, nested types and lists. Every type becomes a C# class when the flow is compiled.