AI & automation
AI agent: An AI system that can plan and take actions toward a goal, such as calling tools, browsing or running workflows, rather than only answering questions.
Automation workflow: A sequence of steps that runs automatically when a trigger occurs, for example 'new email → summarize with AI → post to Slack'.
Embedding: A list of numbers that represents the meaning of text, images or audio, so similar items have similar numbers. Used for search and recommendations.
Fine-tuning: Further training a pre-trained AI model on your own examples to specialize it for a task or style.
Generative AI: AI that creates new content such as text, images, code, audio or video in response to a prompt.
Hallucination: When an AI model produces confident but false or made-up information.
Large language model (LLM): An AI model trained on huge amounts of text to understand and generate language, such as the models behind ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
Machine learning: A branch of AI where systems learn patterns from data instead of following hand-written rules.
No-code automation: Tools such as Zapier, Make or n8n that let you connect apps and automate tasks without writing code.
Prompt engineering: Writing instructions for an AI model, with role, context, task, format and constraints, to get better results.
Prompt injection: An attack where hidden or malicious instructions in input trick an AI system into ignoring its rules or leaking data.
RAG (retrieval-augmented generation): A technique where an AI looks up relevant documents first and uses them to answer, improving accuracy and freshness.
Token: A small chunk of text (roughly ¾ of a word) that AI models read and generate; usage and limits are often measured in tokens.
Vector database: A database designed to store embeddings and quickly find the most similar items; often used in RAG systems.
Vision-language-action model: An AI model that takes images and natural-language instructions and outputs robot movements.
Development
API: Application Programming Interface: a defined way for software systems to talk to each other.
CI/CD: Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery: automatically building, testing and releasing code changes.
JSON: A lightweight text format for structured data, widely used by APIs.
JWT (JSON Web Token): A compact, signed token used to securely pass identity and claims between systems.
Webhook: An automatic HTTP message one app sends to another when an event happens; the backbone of many automations.
Cloud
Auto scaling: Automatically adding or removing computing resources as demand changes.
Availability: The percentage of time a system is up and working; 99.9% allows about 8.8 hours of downtime per year.
CDN (content delivery network): A network of servers worldwide that caches content close to users for faster loading.
Container: A lightweight package containing an application and its dependencies that shares the host operating system kernel.
Edge computing: Running code and storing data close to users (at 'the edge' of the network) to reduce latency.
Elasticity: The ability of a system to automatically grow and shrink its resources to match demand.
IaaS / PaaS / SaaS: Cloud service models: Infrastructure (you manage the OS and up), Platform (you manage code and data), Software (you just use the app).
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Defining servers, networks and other infrastructure in version-controlled code files instead of configuring them by hand.
Kubernetes: An open-source platform that automatically deploys, scales and heals containerized applications across a cluster.
Load balancer: A service that spreads incoming traffic across multiple servers and removes unhealthy ones.
Multi-cloud: Using services from two or more cloud providers.
RPO / RTO: Disaster recovery targets: Recovery Point Objective (maximum data loss) and Recovery Time Objective (maximum downtime).
Serverless: Running code without managing servers; the provider scales it automatically and bills per use.
Subnet: A smaller section of a network's IP address range, used to organize and secure resources.
VPC (virtual private cloud): A private, isolated network inside a public cloud where you run your resources.
Security
Encryption at rest: Encrypting stored data so it's unreadable if disks or backups are stolen.
Least privilege: Giving people and systems only the access they need to do their job, and nothing more.
MFA (multifactor authentication): Requiring two or more proofs of identity, such as a password plus a phone prompt, to sign in.
Phishing: Fraudulent messages that trick people into revealing credentials or installing malware.
Ransomware: Malware that encrypts or steals data and demands payment for its return.
SIEM: Security Information and Event Management: a system that collects and analyzes logs to detect threats.
WAF (web application firewall): A firewall that filters web traffic to block attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
Zero trust: A security model that verifies every user, device and request, never trusting anything by default.
Business
Micro-SaaS: A small, focused software-as-a-service product, often run by one person or a tiny team, solving a niche problem.
MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue: predictable subscription revenue per month.
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