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Concepts

This section explains how the gateway works and the words the rest of the documentation uses. Read it before configuring a gateway or building on its API; each page stands on its own, so you can also come back to one when a term in another section is unclear.

PageWhat it covers
ArchitectureCore and modules, the NATS JetStream event backbone, SQLite, the path a value takes from a source to subscribers, alarms and the historian, the module boundary, script workers, secrets at rest, and what runs in the container
TagsWhat a tag is, the tag kinds and where each gets its value, quality and timestamps, scaling and deadband, writes and the audit trail, and the tag browser in the dashboard
Tag typesTag types (UDTs): parameters, members and nested types, placeholder substitution, instances and overrides, inheritance, tags added to an instance, the built-in types and alarm templates
AlarmsAlarm definitions and conditions, states and acknowledgement, how quality affects evaluation, alarm history and live frames
History and replayWhere history comes from, the historian and the backbone fallback, checkpoints, and replaying the plant as it was to one connection
SecurityRoles, sessions and API keys, trusted origins, identity providers, and what is audited

A few terms used throughout: the gateway is the server; the dashboard is its web UI, served by the gateway itself; a module is an optional component loaded into the gateway, and a driver is a module that connects to a device or broker; a connection is a configured device or broker inside a driver; a tag type is what the API calls a UDT, and an instance is one tag built from it. The glossary has the full list.