# Glossary of Substrait terms > What Substrait's own words mean, from AI-built tool and data owner to promotion, the Substrait layer and seat. URL: https://substrait.build/glossary/ Last updated: 2026-11-06 Each term below has one meaning on this site and in the product. ## AI-built tool Software a person builds with an AI model. There are five kinds: web apps, agents, Slates, knowledge bases and skills. Substrait governs and runs all five. On this site, "tool" always means an AI-built tool. ## Builder A user who builds tools. On Substrait a builder is usually not an engineer. A builder holds a seat. ## Substrait layer The six services underneath every tool on Substrait: build and deploy, identity, capabilities, data, infosec and communications. [Read more](https://substrait.build/). ## Slate A living page that a team builds together, each person through their own AI, with each AI drawing on the whole shared project. It holds what a deck or a document cannot, such as interactive charts, dashboards, tables to fill in and animated process flows. Every change is a version, and it stays behind the company sign-in. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/slate/). ## Knowledge base A governed collection of knowledge that a tool or person retrieves from. Substrait governs who may see which parts. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/tool-registry/). ## Skill A governed set of instructions for an AI, such as a rules file or a prompt template, that may carry a data grant. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/tool-registry/). ## Web app A tool with a user interface and, often, a database and an API. Substrait governs what data it may reach. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/tool-registry/). ## Agent A tool given a goal and a set of tools, that decides at runtime what to do. On Substrait an agent is a tool its builder owns, with its own identity and limits. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/governed-agents/). ## Data group A set of APIs, data sets and fields that belong together, such as finance or operations. Each data group has a data owner. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/governed-data-access/). ## Data owner The person who decides every request to read the data in a data group. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/governed-data-access/). ## Enrolment A grant that lets a person see which data exists in a data group and its shape, with no records. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/governed-data-access/). ## Authorisation A grant, approved by the data owner for a set time, that lets a person or a tool read the data in a data group. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/governed-data-access/). ## Gateway The single path through which every tool on Substrait calls company data. It checks the grant, attaches the credential and records the read. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/governed-data-access/). ## Data set A reviewed, parameterised and versioned query over the data warehouse, which a tool reads instead of running raw queries. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/api-library/). ## API Library Substrait's catalogue of the company APIs, tools' APIs and data sets a tool can be built against. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/api-library/). ## Capability group A group that decides what a person may do on the platform, such as view the security centre or operate agents. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/roles-and-access/). ## App role A set of permissions on one tool, such as deploying it or managing its sign-in list, that the tool's owner gives to a person. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/roles-and-access/). ## Dev and production The two environments of a tool on Substrait. Every tool starts in dev, behind the organisation's sign-in. Production exists once the builder goes live. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/one-command-go-live/). ## Going live The act that creates a tool's production environment by promoting the build tested in dev. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/one-command-go-live/). ## Promotion Moving one exact build from dev to production. Every promotion runs the security check on that build. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/one-command-go-live/). ## Security check The scans, classification, review where needed, and records that every release passes before it reaches production. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/security-check/). ## Risk tier A tool's class by what it can affect, such as read-only, takes actions or faces customers. It sets the approval bar. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/policies-and-approvals/). ## Boundary The limits an approval sets on a tool: which data, read or write, customer-facing or not. Changes inside the boundary need no new approval. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/policies-and-approvals/). ## Registry Substrait's record of every tool, with its owner, purpose, risk tier and versions. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/tool-registry/). ## Home and Explore Each employee's page of their own tools, and the directory of tools colleagues chose to share. Finding a tool never grants access to it. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/home-and-explore/). ## Communications centre One central, pre-wired exchange that connects every alert, approval, notification and message across the organisation, so no tool builds its own. Every tool built on Substrait calls it, and it delivers them to the company's own channels, such as Slack, Google Chat or email, on the channel each person chooses. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/communications/). ## Agentic Builder Product management and build agents on Substrait: a request in plain words becomes a tool. Where a builder is a user who builds, Agentic Builder is the same work done by AI agents, called build agents, under the company's rules and with the tool's owner in charge. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/agentic-builder/). ## Build agent An AI agent that plans, builds, tests and ships a change under the company's rules. A builder is the person; a build agent is the AI. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/agentic-builder/). ## Template Common business software that Substrait builds on best practice from its own experience, already wired to the company's cloud, sign-on, identity and data. A team copies it and owns the copy. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/seeded-templates/). ## Scaffold The versioned starting structure, fitted to the company, that every tool is built on. It carries sign-on, secrets handling and deploy paths, and nothing about the company's data. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/build-with-your-own-ai-model/). ## Standard setup on Substrait's cloud Substrait run by Substrait for an organisation, with standard settings and nothing to install. The move to the organisation's own cloud is always open. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/your-own-cloud/). ## Your own environment The organisation's own tenant: its cloud account or data centre, its identity and access rules, its keys and its bill. [Read more](https://substrait.build/capabilities/your-own-cloud/). ## Forward-deployed team Substrait's engineers in the client's region who set Substrait up, wire the first data connections and write the first policies with the client. [Read more](https://substrait.build/how-we-work/). ## Builder Academy An optional Substrait service in which people teach the client's people to build. [Read more](https://substrait.build/how-we-work/). ## Seat What Substrait charges for each month: one for each person who builds, approves or administers. People who only use tools, agents and tools hold no seat. [Read more](https://substrait.build/how-we-work/). ## Related - [Substrait in facts](https://substrait.build/facts/): Plain facts about Substrait: what it is, who makes it, who it is for, what it works with, where it runs, how it is priced and how to start. - [How we work, and how pricing works](https://substrait.build/how-we-work/): Substrait is a platform and a forward-deployed team in your region. It comes as one pre-configured system, with two paths in: teams that already build, and companies whose people do not build yet. Pricing is a monthly seat for each builder, approver and admin, with a one-time setup fee only when Substrait's team sets it up; there is no platform fee and viewers are free.