Glossary

Approval. An owner’s confirmation that a rule is described correctly and that its recorded reason is the real one. See Owners and approvals.

Business rule. A decision the business made that a system enforces, such as a refund window or a discount cap. See Business rules.

Change impact. Everything that depends on a rule, shown before it changes. See Change impact.

Coverage. How much of an area has owners, approved reasons and current evidence. See Coverage.

Evidence. A source that supports a fact about a rule: code, a PR, a ticket, a doc, a thread or an owner’s answer.

First-hand / second-hand. Whether a person knows something directly, or is passing on what someone else told them. Both are kept, and labelled.

Location. One place a rule is enforced or described. A rule can have many.

om. AppThentic’s interviewing model. See om.

Organization Memory. Everything AppThentic knows about your rules, reasons, people, decisions and evidence, connected and sourced. See Organization Memory.

Owner. The person accountable for why a rule exists.

Provenance. Where a fact came from, who said it, and when. See Evidence and provenance.

Status. How far to trust a rule: Observed, Documented, Inferred, Approved, Disputed, Stale or Unknown. See Rule statuses.

Stale. An approved answer whose rule or context has changed since approval.