Concepts
The terms below are used throughout the cockpit, the API and these docs.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Instance | One FACE deployment for one organisation. After sign-in you choose the instance to work in. |
| Connection | A configured link to one data source: its type (for example Snowflake, SAP, MQTT or a camera) and its settings. Credentials are stored separately and are write-only. See Data sources. |
| Runner | The process that executes work against a data source. Managed runners run on the platform. Self-hosted runners run in your network and enrol with the instance. |
| Test | A connection check. A test either dials the source (a live check) or only validates the saved configuration, and the result tells you which one happened. |
| Source backing | What stands behind a connection: a live system, or (on demonstration instances only) a mock service or sample data. The API reports it with each connection, so sample data can be told apart from yours. |
| Fetch | One run of the pipeline over one or more connections: fetch, extract, reason, recommend. Fetches can be run on demand or on a schedule. |
| Trace | The recorded history of a fetch: its steps, the sources it read, and what it produced. |
| Data lineage | An append-only record of which source was read, when, with what shape and outcome. It records structure only, never the values returned. |
| Grounding | Retrieving your own records (by vector and keyword search) to support a model’s reasoning, so answers cite your data. |
| Action card | A recommended action in a business domain (Compliance, Finance, Operations, Procurement, S&OP). It waits in the Twins action queue as pending until it is approved or rejected. |
| Evidence document | A structured document FACE derives from your data, such as an OS&D report, a temperature-excursion record, or a chain-of-custody audit. The set of document kinds is fixed. Kinds FACE cannot support from evidence are deliberately not produced. |
| Decision artifact | The reviewable output of an analysis that a person approves or rejects. |
| Remediation | The workflow after a compliance, finance or operations finding: assign it, decide it, and route it. |
| Twins | The live operational view: streamed state, the action queue, route optimisation and projected savings. |