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Glossary

Baseline Environment​

A stable Kubernetes environment that holds default versions of microservices and resources. Sandboxes extend from this baseline for development and testing.

Sandbox​

An isolated set of workloads and ephemeral resources used to safely develop or test microservice changes. See Sandbox for details.

DevMesh​

The envoy-based sidecar system that routes requests to sandboxes. Learn more in the DevMesh guide.

RouteGroup​

A custom resource that defines routing rules between sandboxes and the baseline. See the RouteGroups documentation.

Signadot CLI​

The command‑line tool for creating sandboxes, installing resource plugins, and managing other Signadot features. See the CLI reference.

Signadot Operator​

The main in-cluster component that manages many Signadot custom resources and orchestrates the lifecycle of sandboxes, resources, and routing. It injects DevMesh sidecars and coordinates traffic between the baseline and sandboxes.

Playground Cluster​

A self‑provisioned Kubernetes cluster with the operator preinstalled for quick experimentation. You can create one from the Signadot Dashboard.

Local Workload​

A process running on a developer workstation that connects into a sandbox via the CLI so requests can be routed to it as if it were running in the cluster.

Resource Plugin​

Extensible plugin that provisions ephemeral resources—such as databases or message queues—when a sandbox is created. See the Resource Plugins guide.

JobRunnerGroup​

Custom resource that provides isolated pods for running Jobs and Smart Tests.

Smart Test​

An integration test written in Starlark that runs against both sandbox and baseline versions of an API. Results are compared using an AI model to highlight relevant differences.

Job​

A task executed in the cluster through a JobRunnerGroup, often used for running integration tests or other automation.

Routing Key​

Unique header value generated for a sandbox or RouteGroup to direct requests during request routing.

Context Propagation​

Forwarding routing headers between services so requests remain associated with a particular sandbox. See the context propagation guide.

OpenTelemetry​

Open-source observability framework used for tracing and context propagation. Learn more.

Service Mesh​

Infrastructure layer such as Istio or Linkerd that manages service-to-service traffic and can be integrated with Signadot for routing.

Istio​

Popular open-source service mesh that integrates with Signadot to route sandbox traffic. Visit istio.io.

Linkerd​

Lightweight service mesh that also works with Signadot for routing sandbox traffic. Visit linkerd.io.

Traffic Capture​

Recording HTTP requests and responses during Smart Tests for later analysis. See traffic capture concepts.

Resource​

Ephemeral infrastructure component—for example a database—created by a Resource Plugin for use within a sandbox.

Shift Left Testing​

Running tests earlier in the development cycle so issues are caught during local development or pre-merge stages.

Previews​

Ephemeral environments spun up for a branch or feature to showcase changes before they are merged.

Integration Testing​

Testing how multiple components or microservices interact within a system.

Contract Testing​

Verifying that a service API conforms to an expected contract or schema.

End-to-End Testing​

Validating an entire workflow from the user request through all services to the final response.

API Testing​

Directly testing REST or gRPC APIs to ensure they return the expected results.

API Mocks​

Simulated API endpoints used when real services are unavailable or hard to reproduce.

Testing Fidelity​

How closely a test environment mirrors production in data, configuration, and behavior.

Multi-tenancy​

Supporting isolated environments for multiple users or teams on shared infrastructure.

Developer Experience​

The overall usability and satisfaction developers have when building and testing software.

Developer Productivity​

Measurement of how efficiently developers deliver features or fixes.

DORA Metrics​

Key DevOps metrics—deployment frequency, lead time, mean time to recovery, and change failure rate—used to assess software delivery performance.

CI​

Continuous Integration processes that automatically build and test code when changes are pushed.

CD​

Continuous Deployment or Delivery pipelines that automatically release code after successful CI checks.

Pre-merge​

Checks and tests performed before code is merged into the main branch.

Local Development​

Running and testing services locally on a developer workstation.

Pull Request​

A request to merge changes from one branch into another, commonly used on GitHub.

Merge Request​

The GitLab equivalent of a pull request for proposing code changes.

Trunk Based Development​

A workflow where all developers commit to a single main branch frequently, keeping branches short-lived.