- Docs
- Reference
Glossary
The terms Archigov uses, in one place.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ADR | Architecture decision record — a decision in the Decision Log, coded ADR-0001 |
| Acting chair | A decision maker nominated by the chair to chair one item, required when the chair authored it |
| Adopted | A catalogue artefact a board has approved; adopted artefacts with rules are evaluated |
| Application | A group of resources inferred from tags or resource-group conventions |
| Area of responsibility | A concern a board divides its decisions by (security, data, …); decision makers own areas |
| Areas mode | An approvals step needing a position for every touched area from its owner |
| Artefact | An item in the governance catalogue: standard, principle, pattern or policy |
| Assessment | Due diligence on a review or decision — requested by a board (blocking) or provided by the author (non-blocking) |
| Audit chain | The audit log, each row hashed together with the previous row's hash |
| Board | A governance body with seats, routing, policies and optionally areas: the Design Authority (DA), the Policy & Compliance Board (PCB), or yours |
| Circulation | Finishing an item after a sitting, when an area's owner was absent |
| Condition | A tracked obligation attached to an approval, with an owner and a due date |
| Conditional | A position meaning yes, subject to; keeps the item open until the chair resolves it |
| Consent agenda | Items already satisfied when a session opens, declared together unless pulled |
| Control reference | A citation of a framework control (e.g. ISO 27001 A.8.24); never the control's text |
| Count mode | An approvals step needing N yes positions from the listed seats |
| Declare | The chair's act of stating the outcome the positions allow |
| Delegation | A decision maker handing their seat to someone for one session, one hop |
| Dependent decision | A decision an approved item waits on; the item becomes effective when it is accepted |
| Derived model | The as-is architecture collected from sources rather than drawn |
| Design Authority | The seeded board for designs, decisions, standards and patterns (the architecture review board) |
| Dry run | Evaluating a draft artefact's rule without storing findings |
| Evidence | An imported assessment result (Defender, Azure Policy, manual) attached to a resource |
| Evidence pack | A signed, hash-chained JSON export of everything that matters |
| Exception | A board-granted exemption from an artefact for an application or element, with an optional expiry |
| Finding | A failed rule for an element, persisted across runs by fingerprint |
| Fixture mode | ARCHIGOV_FIXTURES=1: integrations answer from recorded data |
| Origin | How something came to exist: derived, inferred, human, ai or rules |
| Planned change | A work item from the backlog feed or logged by hand |
| Platform admin | The operations flag: runs the instance, holds no governance right |
| Position | A decision maker's stance on an area: yes, no, conditional, not my area |
| Pre-review | Automatic advisory checks on a review: deterministic and optionally AI |
| Provenance | Where an element came from: source, reference, method, confidence |
| Quorum by area | Whether each area's owner or their delegate is present in a session |
| Review | An item of governance business, typed: design, decision, standard, principle, pattern, policy, exception |
| Routing | Rules choosing which board a review goes to |
| Run | One evaluation or sync, with statistics and the changes it caused |
| Seat | A role on a board: chair, decision maker, reviewer, secretary, observer |
| Session | One sitting of a board, coded SES-0001 |
| Shared service | Shared platform resources (hub networks, identity) grouped apart from applications |
| Touched areas | The areas a review concerns, derived and correctable |
| Verification | Whether a named human stands behind an item; drops to unverified when its content changes |
| Work queue | What the workflow waits on you for (/me/work) |
Something unclear or out of date? Write to hello@archigov.com or open an issue on GitHub.