Glossary
This glossary defines terms in the Devexana interface and documentation. Each entry links to a page with more information.
Terms
| Term | Meaning | See |
|---|---|---|
| Abstain reply | The reply "I don't have a local record that answers that." when no stored record answers the question | Cited answers, “The assistant says it has no local record” |
| Administrator | A person with the Full access role, who adds sources, approves read functions and changes settings | Accounts, roles and sign-in |
| Anchor | A signed copy of the audit log's latest hash, used to detect a rewrite of the log | The audit log |
| Answer | What the assistant returns to a question, with its citations | Ask questions |
| Appliance | The computer on your network that runs Devexana and its language models | How Devexana is delivered |
| Audit log | The hash-chained, append-only record of sign-ins, approvals, setting changes and cloud sends. Settings › Trust › Access audit shows this log | The audit log |
| AU-9 | The NIST SP 800-53 control for the protection of audit information. Devexana uses the name for its audit log protections | The audit log |
| Availability badge | A label that states whether a capability is in production use, available or off by default | What Devexana is |
| Campus map | A map of the buildings and closets in your site file, with the logical links that your switches report | Network views: campus map and switch faceplate |
| Change lock | The lock in the code that refuses every network-device change in this release | Read-only sources, Change proposals and human approval |
| Change proposal | A drafted network-device change that a person must accept. Disabled in this release | Change proposals and human approval |
| Citation | A numbered link from an answer to the stored record that the model was given | Cited answers |
| Connectors screen | The screen where an administrator adds sources and approves their read functions | Sources and support tiers |
| Daily brief | One summary a day of firewall alerts, which Devexana can also send by email | Firewall alerts and the daily brief |
| Edition | Government/Education or Business. The edition sets which screens are available | Editions |
| Egress guard | The check inside the Devexana service that blocks outbound TCP connections that are not allowed | Outbound connections: the complete list |
| Egress log | The hash-chained log of sends from Devexana to outside systems. Settings › Trust › Egress log shows this log | The audit log, Outbound connections: the complete list |
| Evidence pack | One download for auditors with the role matrix, access grants, an OSCAL package and the result of the audit chain check | Audit log and the auditor evidence pack |
| Faceplate | A drawing of a switch's ports that shows the state of each port and what is connected to it | Network views: campus map and switch faceplate |
| Freshness | How old a stored record is. Each citation shows it | Cited answers, Data looks stale |
| Grounding checks | Deterministic checks that remove person names and dates that are not in the source records, and mark other unsupported details | Cited answers |
| Listener | A port on the appliance that receives syslog, SNMP traps or NetFlow. A listener cannot send data | Syslog, SNMP traps and NetFlow |
| Model engine | The service on the appliance that runs the language models | “Can't reach the on-box model engine” |
| Network device | A switch, router or firewall on your network | Switches over SSH and SNMP |
| Networking assistant | The assistant on a switch page. It uses a cloud model only when Devexana has set up the cloud connection for the deployment | Where the AI runs, Ask questions |
| Read function | One kind of read that a source can do. Each read function stays off until an administrator approves it | Read-only sources |
| Read set | The list of read commands that Devexana runs on a switch | Switches over SSH and SNMP |
| Record | One unit of stored data, such as a ticket, a network device, a log summary or a document | How it works |
| Reranker | A small model on the appliance that puts search results in order before the local model writes the answer | How it works |
| Role | The set of rights a person has: Full access, Standard, Auditor or No access | Accounts, roles and sign-in |
| Routine | A scheduled report that produces a PDF file | Routines (scheduled reports) |
| Site file | The file your team maintains that lists your buildings and closets | Network views: campus map and switch faceplate |
| Source | A read-only connection to one system, such as a helpdesk, a switch or a firewall | Sources and support tiers |
| Source health | The state of a source: healthy, degraded, stalled, broken or expired credential | Source health states |
| Turtletown | A fictional town. The screenshots in this documentation come from its sample data | What Devexana is |
| Zero-data-retention (ZDR) agreement | The agreement on AWS through which Devexana provides any cloud model in production. Customers do not bring their own model keys | Where the AI runs, Outbound connections: the complete list |
Applies to Devexana release 0.3.182. Page updated 2026-10-20. Questions or corrections: support@devexana.com.