name: Red Hat 3scale API Management Vocabulary
description: >-
  Core vocabulary and terminology for Red Hat 3scale API Management including
  API lifecycle management, developer portal, traffic policies, and billing concepts.
created: '2026-05-02'
modified: '2026-05-02'
terms:
  - term: Account
    definition: >-
      A developer account in the 3scale developer portal representing an organization
      or individual API consumer. Accounts hold applications and billing information.
    tags:
      - Developer Portal
      - Identity

  - term: Application
    definition: >-
      An API client credential set (API key, OAuth client, or App ID/App Key pair)
      associated with a developer account and subscribed to an application plan.
    tags:
      - Credentials
      - Developer Portal

  - term: Application Plan
    definition: >-
      A pricing and access tier that defines usage limits, rate limits, features,
      and pricing for API consumers. Applications subscribe to application plans.
    tags:
      - Monetization
      - Traffic Management

  - term: APIcast
    definition: >-
      The 3scale API gateway (NGINX/OpenResty based) that enforces traffic policies,
      authentication, rate limiting, and usage reporting for managed APIs.
    tags:
      - API Gateway
      - Infrastructure

  - term: Service
    definition: >-
      An API service in 3scale that represents a backend API being managed.
      Each service has authentication settings, application plans, and policies.
    tags:
      - API Management

  - term: Metric
    definition: >-
      A quantitative measure of API usage tracked by 3scale (e.g., hits, storage,
      bandwidth). Metrics are used for rate limiting and billing calculations.
    tags:
      - Analytics
      - Traffic Management

  - term: Method
    definition: >-
      A subset of the hits metric that represents a specific API endpoint or operation.
      Methods allow granular usage tracking and rate limiting per endpoint.
    tags:
      - Analytics
      - Traffic Management

  - term: Policy
    definition: >-
      A configurable behavior applied to API traffic at the gateway level, such as
      caching, rate limiting, JWT validation, CORS, or custom transformations.
    tags:
      - API Gateway
      - Configuration

  - term: Policy Chain
    definition: >-
      An ordered sequence of policies applied to API requests and responses as
      they pass through the APIcast gateway.
    tags:
      - API Gateway
      - Configuration

  - term: Developer Portal
    definition: >-
      A customizable web portal for API consumers to discover APIs, register accounts,
      subscribe to plans, manage credentials, and view documentation.
    tags:
      - Developer Experience
      - Portal

  - term: ActiveDocs
    definition: >-
      3scale's implementation of interactive API documentation based on the OpenAPI
      (Swagger) specification. ActiveDocs allow developers to try APIs in the browser.
    tags:
      - Documentation
      - Developer Experience

  - term: Tenant
    definition: >-
      A 3scale deployment instance with its own admin portal, developer portal,
      APIs, and accounts. Also called an organization in SaaS context.
    tags:
      - Multi-Tenancy

  - term: Provider Key
    definition: >-
      A secret key that authenticates the 3scale API gateway to the 3scale management
      API for authorization and reporting calls.
    tags:
      - Authentication
      - Security

  - term: User Key
    definition: >-
      An API key credential issued to an application for API key authentication mode.
      Passed by API consumers in requests to the API gateway.
    tags:
      - Authentication
      - Credentials

  - term: Rate Limiting
    definition: >-
      Traffic control that restricts the number of API calls an application can
      make within a defined period (minute, hour, day, month) as specified in the plan.
    tags:
      - Traffic Management
      - Policies

  - term: Webhook
    definition: >-
      An HTTP callback notification sent by 3scale to a configured endpoint when
      account, application, or subscription events occur.
    tags:
      - Events
      - Integration

  - term: Toolbox
    definition: >-
      A command-line interface (CLI) for automating 3scale configuration tasks,
      including copying APIs between tenants and importing OpenAPI specifications.
    tags:
      - Automation
      - CLI

  - term: Billing Period
    definition: >-
      The recurring interval (monthly) at which usage-based charges are calculated
      and invoices are generated for developer accounts.
    tags:
      - Billing
      - Monetization