aid: consul-connect:vocabulary
name: Consul Connect Service Mesh Vocabulary
description: >-
  Shared vocabulary for HashiCorp Consul Connect, the service mesh component
  of HashiCorp Consul. Connect introduces sidecar proxies, intentions, mesh
  gateways, and a built-in CA to provide service identity, mTLS, and traffic
  authorization for service-to-service communication across heterogeneous
  runtimes.
namespace: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/vocabulary#
terms:
  - term: ServiceMesh
    definition: >-
      An infrastructure layer that controls service-to-service communication
      with identity, encryption, observability, and policy enforcement.
  - term: Intention
    definition: >-
      A declarative authorization rule that allows or denies communication
      between a source and destination service in the Consul mesh.
    sameAs: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/connect/intentions
  - term: SidecarProxy
    definition: >-
      An Envoy proxy deployed alongside an application instance to terminate
      and originate mTLS connections, enforce intentions, and apply traffic
      policies.
    sameAs: https://www.envoyproxy.io/
  - term: MeshGateway
    definition: >-
      A gateway that bridges traffic between Consul datacenters or admin
      partitions over the WAN while preserving mTLS service identity.
  - term: TerminatingGateway
    definition: >-
      A gateway that allows mesh services to communicate with external
      services that are not registered in the mesh.
  - term: IngressGateway
    definition: >-
      A gateway that exposes mesh services to clients outside the mesh, with
      optional TLS termination and routing.
  - term: ApiGateway
    definition: >-
      Consul's North-South gateway that integrates with the Kubernetes
      Gateway API and enables L7 routing into mesh services.
  - term: ConsulCA
    definition: >-
      The built-in Connect certificate authority that issues short-lived
      mTLS leaf certificates to services. Pluggable providers include
      Consul, Vault, AWS PCA, and external root.
  - term: ServiceIntent
    definition: >-
      A higher-level concept describing the desired authorization between
      two services, materialized through one or more Intention resources.
  - term: ServiceDefaults
    definition: >-
      A configuration entry that sets default protocol, timeouts, and
      mesh-wide behavior for a service.
  - term: ServiceResolver
    definition: >-
      A configuration entry that defines how requests for a service are
      resolved to subsets and failover targets.
  - term: ServiceRouter
    definition: >-
      A configuration entry that performs L7 routing of requests to a
      service based on path, header, or method matchers.
  - term: ServiceSplitter
    definition: >-
      A configuration entry that splits traffic between subsets of a service
      by weighted percentages, supporting canary and blue/green rollouts.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com