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Terms are grouped by area. Each links to the page that covers it in depth.

Apps and access

App : One Wavefront backend: its own database, models, agents, workflows, datasources, configurations, chatbots and users. Apps are fully separate from each other. Typical uses are one app per customer, team or environment (development, staging, production). Wavefront Console : The web UI for building and operating apps. You add an app to the console by registering its URLs; from then on you manage it from the console without signing in to it separately. Console user and app user : Console users sign in to the Wavefront Console. App users sign in to one app directly, which is what your own application does when it calls the API. The two are separate accounts. Role : Permissions of an app user. Admin can do everything, including managing users and reading the audit trail; other roles are more limited. Some APIs are admin-only. Namespace : A label that groups resources inside an app (agents, workflows, configurations, chatbots). It is for organisation and lookup, not for security: anyone with access to the app can see every namespace.

AI building blocks

LLM config : An entry in the LLM Repository: a provider (OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, Ollama, vLLM), a model, credentials and settings. Agents refer to it by id, so keys never appear in agent or workflow definitions and a model can be swapped in one place. See LLM Repository. Agent : One model with a role, a job description (its instructions), optional tools and an optional parser. You can test an agent on its own from the console. See Agents. Parser (structured output) : The schema an agent’s answer must follow: named fields with types, nested objects and lists. With a parser, an agent returns JSON your code can rely on instead of free text. See Structured output. Tool : Something an agent may call while it works, such as running a datasource query, downloading a file or calling a function. See Tools. Workflow : A graph of steps (nodes) that runs in order: agents, function nodes, routers, iterators and sub-workflows, joined by edges, with a start node and one or more end nodes. Written in YAML. See Workflows. Node : One step of a workflow. The kinds you will use most:
  • agent node: runs an agent;
  • function node: runs a built-in function such as a datasource query, a file download, a configuration read or a function;
  • router: picks the next node based on the previous output;
  • iterator (ForEach): runs a node once per item in a list;
  • sub-workflow: a workflow nested inside another, with its own memory.
Sub-workflow : A workflow used as one node of another workflow. It sees only the inputs it is given and returns only its final result, which keeps each agent’s context small. See Sub-workflows. input_filter : The list of earlier nodes whose outputs a node receives. Without it, a node sees the whole conversation so far. See Passing data between nodes. Workflow variables : Named values passed when a workflow is run (for example the id of the record to process). Every node can read them. Version : Agents and workflows keep a history of versions. Saving a new version and making it the current version are separate steps; runs use the current version. See Versions.

Deterministic logic

Function : A small JavaScript program, shown in the console under Functions and called a message processor in the API. It takes a JSON input and returns JSON. Functions do the parts that must be exact: computing, comparing, deciding, reshaping. They run in a sandbox with no network access. See Functions. Configuration : A named JSON document stored in the app (namespace + key) that workflows read at run time: thresholds, rule tables, scoring weights, lookup lists. Editing a configuration changes behaviour from the next run, with no workflow change. See Configurations.

Data and files

Datasource : A connection to a database (for example PostgreSQL or BigQuery) or to file storage (S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage). See Datasources. Dynamic query : A named, parameterised SQL query saved on a datasource and run by name with parameters. One dynamic query can return several result sets. It is the standard way to read data. See Dynamic queries. File store path : Files uploaded to a file-storage datasource are referred to by a datasource://<datasource-id>/<path> reference, which you can store in a table and pass to workflows. See File storage. Audit trail : When enabled, a record of every row inserted, updated or deleted through the datasource API, and every file uploaded or downloaded, with who did it and when. See Audit trail.

Running things

Inference : Running an agent or workflow. Synchronous inference waits for the result in the same API call; asynchronous inference queues the run and returns an execution id. Execution : One asynchronous run: its status (pending, in progress, completed, failed), error and output. See Running workflows. Worker : The background process that runs queued (asynchronous) work. Chatbot and session : A chatbot is a model with a system prompt and a welcome message. Each conversation is a session that belongs to one user and keeps its message history; replies can be streamed. See Chatbots. Trigger and scheduled job : Ways to start work automatically: on an event, or on a schedule. Guardrail : A check applied to model input or output, for example to block or rewrite unsafe content.