Concepts

These are the terms every part of Orbit shares. Each domain page defines the terms it adds.

Fleet

Gateway: The service that owns all fleet state. It authorizes every request and applies changes to Nodes. It is Orbit’s control plane and runs only on Linux. See Architecture.
Node: A machine in the fleet. It joins the private WireGuard network. It may have service roles or only managed Tools.
Roleless Node: A Node with no roles, such as an operator’s laptop. It joins the network and may have managed Tools. The web app lists it apart from Nodes with roles.
Role: One kind of work a Node does, such as app-dev or ingress. See Architecture.
Cluster: An optional group of Nodes that share routing.
Access grant: A directed permission that lets one Node act on another through the Gateway. See node.
Tool: A package that Orbit installs or explicitly adopts, then updates on a Node. See Tools.

Project: One Git repository and the defaults for running it. Its type decides what its Instances can do. See Projects.
Project Documents: Folders and versioned files owned by a Project, independent of Git branches and Instances. See Project Documents.
Instance: One running copy of a Project on a Node, for development or production. See Applications.
Placement: The Node where an Instance runs. That Node’s app-dev or app-prod role makes it a development or production Instance. Process and Schedule definitions name this kind environments.
Route: A domain that reaches an Instance or a Node-local service. See Routes.
Process: A long-running service that Orbit manages for an Instance or a Node, such as a queue worker. See Processes and schedules.
Schedule: A command that runs on a timer for an Instance or a Node. See Schedules.
Database server: A MySQL server that Orbit runs as a Docker Process on a Node and that holds Database connections. See Database servers.
Deployment: One release that Orbit prepares and activates on a production Instance. See Production release layout.

Doctor: The check that compares the state the Gateway expects with each Node’s actual state. It reports every difference and changes nothing. See Doctor.
Activity: The Gateway’s record of requests. It keeps every change and every failed request, plus a sample of successful reads. See Activity.
Pi server: The service on a Node that runs Pi coding-agent sessions for the Tasks pi driver. See Pi server. Server alone names neither it nor a Database server.
Node agent: The program on managed Linux Nodes that reports presence and Process state. It never changes a Node. See Node agent.
Extension: An optional Gateway feature with one switch at the Gateway. A disabled extension is invisible to every client. See extension.

Task: One feature or bug fix, delivered as one pull request. The Tasks board shows this top-level tasks row, which has no parent_id. See Tasks.
Task definition: A Project’s stored plan in the Gateway. Writing one does not start a task. See Tasks.
Subtask: A child task with parent_id set to its task and with no children of its own. See Tasks.
Deliverable: A checkable item that a subtask must produce, such as a file, a test, or a command that passes.
Task check: The command that a Project runs to verify every subtask handoff.
Task workspace: The Instance that Orbit provisions for a task, and its checkout on an app-dev Node.
Turn receipt: The file .git/orbit/receipt.json that the command .git/orbit/turn writes. See Tasks.