name: Scalr
description: >-
  Vocabulary for Scalr, an enterprise remote Terraform and OpenTofu operations
  platform providing IaC governance, policy enforcement, and collaborative infrastructure management.
created: '2026-05-02'
modified: '2026-05-02'
terms:
  - term: Account
    definition: >-
      The top-level entity in Scalr's three-tier hierarchy. An account represents
      a company or organization within Scalr, containing multiple environments and
      enforcing account-wide policies, roles, and billing.
    tags:
      - Hierarchy
      - Organization

  - term: Environment
    definition: >-
      The second tier in Scalr's hierarchy, representing an isolated workspace group
      (e.g., development, staging, production). Environments contain workspaces and
      support environment-level policy enforcement and access control.
    tags:
      - Hierarchy
      - Isolation

  - term: Workspace
    definition: >-
      The fundamental unit of IaC execution in Scalr. A workspace maps to a single
      Terraform/OpenTofu root module, stores state, manages variables, and executes runs.
      Compatible with Terraform Cloud workspace concepts.
    tags:
      - Infrastructure as Code
      - Terraform
      - State Management

  - term: Run
    definition: >-
      A single execution of a Terraform plan, apply, or destroy operation within a workspace.
      Runs have a lifecycle of states: pending, plan_queued, planning, planned, apply_queued,
      applying, applied, discarded, errored.
    tags:
      - Execution
      - Terraform

  - term: State
    definition: >-
      The Terraform state file storing the current infrastructure configuration managed by
      a workspace. Scalr provides secure remote state storage, versioning, and locking.
    tags:
      - State Management
      - Terraform

  - term: Policy Group
    definition: >-
      A collection of OPA (Open Policy Agent) or Sentinel policies applied to a workspace
      or environment. Policy groups enforce governance rules before infrastructure changes
      are applied.
    tags:
      - Governance
      - OPA
      - Policy

  - term: Provider Configuration
    definition: >-
      A stored cloud provider credential configuration (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.) that can be
      shared across workspaces without exposing raw credentials to workspace operators.
    tags:
      - Credentials
      - Infrastructure as Code
      - Security

  - term: Variable
    definition: >-
      A key-value configuration parameter for Terraform (HCL variable) or environment
      variable scoped to a workspace, environment, or account with optional sensitivity marking.
    tags:
      - Configuration
      - Terraform

  - term: Service Account Token
    definition: >-
      A non-personal API token for CI/CD integrations, automation, and service-to-service
      communication with the Scalr API. Preferred over personal tokens for automation.
    tags:
      - Authentication
      - Security

  - term: GitOps
    definition: >-
      Workflow where infrastructure changes are triggered by version control system events
      (pull requests, merges). Scalr supports GitOps workflows with GitHub, GitLab,
      Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps.
    tags:
      - Automation
      - CI/CD
      - Git

  - term: OIDC
    definition: >-
      OpenID Connect authentication allowing Scalr API access using ID tokens from external
      identity providers including GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, AWS IAM, and Azure Managed
      Identity, eliminating the need for static API tokens.
    tags:
      - Authentication
      - Security

  - term: Farm
    definition: >-
      Legacy Scalr term (v1beta0 API) for a group of cloud servers sharing configuration
      and lifecycle management. Analogous to an infrastructure stack.
    tags:
      - Legacy
      - Cloud Management

  - term: Farm Role
    definition: >-
      Legacy Scalr term (v1beta0 API) for a role within a Farm defining the server type,
      scaling configuration, and orchestration for a group of cloud instances.
    tags:
      - Legacy
      - Cloud Management

  - term: Orchestration Rule
    definition: >-
      An automation rule defining actions to execute in response to server lifecycle events
      (scaling up/down, termination). Part of Scalr's legacy cloud management API.
    tags:
      - Automation
      - Legacy

  - term: MCP Server
    definition: >-
      Scalr's Model Context Protocol server integration allowing AI assistants and LLMs
      to interact with Scalr workspaces, runs, and state via the MCP protocol.
    tags:
      - AI
      - Automation
      - MCP

  - term: Cost Estimation
    definition: >-
      Scalr's pre-apply cost analysis that estimates the monthly infrastructure spend
      impact of a Terraform plan before it is applied.
    tags:
      - FinOps
      - Governance