Glossary¶

Plain-language definitions of every recurring term, in alphabetical order.

Agent: A long-lived process (usually the OpenTelemetry Collector) that speaks OpAMP and is managed by Ampora. Identified by mTLS fingerprint after bootstrap. See Concepts.
ADR: Architecture Decision Record. A short document recording why a technical decision was made, what alternatives were considered, and the trade-offs. See ADR index.
Apply: The act of an agent activating an assigned configuration. Reported back as RemoteConfigStatus = APPLYING / APPLIED / FAILED.
Approval flow: A four-eyes mechanism where one operator authors a change and a different operator approves it before it goes live. See Approval flows.
Assigned config: The configuration version Ampora has assigned to an agent (via group membership or direct push).
Audit event: An immutable record of who did what, when, against which entity, with what before/after values. See Audit log.
Backplane: The cross-instance coordination layer for HA deployments — InProcess, Postgres, or Redis. See Dispatch backplane.
Batch: A subset of agents in a rollout that receives the change together. In Batch strategy, the batch size is fixed; in Percentage and Canary strategies, batch size is computed.
Bootstrap token: A short-lived, single-use token authenticating an agent's first connection. Replaced by mTLS afterward.
Canary: A rollout strategy with percentage steps and time-based dwell between them. The default safe choice for production.
Capability: A flag the agent advertises to say what it can do (AcceptsRemoteConfig, ReportsHealth, …). Ampora gates pushes on capability.
Configuration / Configuration Version: A named container for a sequence of versions. A version is the actual YAML at a point in time, with a content hash. Published versions are immutable.
CRL: Certificate Revocation List. Ampora publishes one per active CA signing key.
Dispatch: Sending a message from Ampora to an agent (or, in HA, from one Ampora instance to another instance that owns the agent's session).
Drift: When an agent's EffectiveConfig does not match its assigned version.
Effective config: The YAML the agent reports it is actually running.
Federation: A mutual, mTLS-+-shared-secret-authenticated, read-only aggregation between two or more Ampora servers. See Federation.
Fingerprint: SHA-256 of an agent's mTLS leaf cert. The agent's identity from the server's perspective.
Group: A collection of agents targeted by a rollout. Static (explicit membership) or Dynamic (label-selector). Each agent belongs to exactly one group at a time.
GitOps source: A registered Git repository whose YAMLs become Ampora draft configurations. See GitOps.
Handover: Moving an agent from one Ampora server to another with identity continuity. See Cross-cluster handover.
Health gate: A rule that auto-pauses a rollout when too many agents fail to apply, disconnect, or report unhealthy.
Identity: A cert + agent record pair. Created at bootstrap-token issuance, bound to an agent on first connect.
Instance UID: An identifier the agent picks for itself. Not a trust anchor — the fingerprint is.
Lint: Tenant-policy-style checks on top of validation. Default rules ship, custom rules use the same DSL as policies.
Master key: 32-byte CSPRNG key that wraps every encryption-at-rest field. Stored in your secret manager, never in the database.
OpAMP: Open Agent Management Protocol — the wire protocol Ampora implements as a server.
Pipeline: One of traces / metrics / logs / profiles inside a collector configuration.
Policy: A rule the rollout engine evaluates before pushing to an agent. Built-in or custom.
Pool (token pool): An issuance endpoint that mints short-lived bootstrap tokens for high-throughput onboarding.
RBAC: Role-Based Access Control. Three roles: Viewer / Operator / Admin.
Rollout: The act of pushing a configuration version to a target group with a strategy and gates.
Single-group invariant: An agent belongs to exactly one group at a time. A schema-level rule, not a UI convention.
Snapshot + history: How agent state is stored: a current snapshot for fast reads, a separate event-history table for time-travel and audit.
Soft delete: Setting DeletedAtUtc rather than running a hard DELETE. Keeps audit trails consistent.
Trust bundle: PEM chain of Active + Trusted CA leaves; agents pull this on bootstrap.