vocabulary:
  name: Score Specification Vocabulary
  description: >-
    Domain vocabulary for the Score workload specification project covering
    platform engineering concepts, Score-specific terminology, CLI tools,
    resource types, and cloud-native deployment concepts.
  created: '2026-05-02'
  modified: '2026-05-02'
  terms:
    - term: Score
      definition: >-
        An open-source, CNCF Sandbox project providing a platform-agnostic workload
        specification that enables developers to define applications once in score.yaml
        and deploy to any container platform without environment-specific configuration.
      tags:
        - Project
        - Specification

    - term: score.yaml
      definition: >-
        The core Score specification file that developers maintain. Contains workload
        metadata, container definitions, service port exposure, and resource dependencies.
        A single score.yaml file replaces environment-specific Docker Compose files,
        Kubernetes manifests, and other platform configurations.
      tags:
        - Core Concept
        - File Format

    - term: Workload
      definition: >-
        In Score terminology, a workload is a container-based application unit with its
        containers, service ports, and resource dependencies. Score workloads map to
        Docker Compose services or Kubernetes Deployments in target platforms.
      tags:
        - Core Concept
        - Architecture

    - term: Score Implementation
      definition: >-
        A CLI tool that translates a score.yaml file into platform-specific configuration.
        Reference implementations include score-compose (Docker Compose) and
        score-k8s (Kubernetes). Third parties can build additional implementations.
      tags:
        - Tooling
        - CLI

    - term: score-compose
      definition: >-
        The reference Score implementation for Docker Compose. Translates score.yaml
        into a docker-compose.yml file suitable for local development. Part of the
        score-spec GitHub organization.
      tags:
        - CLI
        - Docker
        - Local Development

    - term: score-k8s
      definition: >-
        The reference Score implementation for Kubernetes. Translates score.yaml into
        Kubernetes manifests including Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, and Secrets.
        Part of the score-spec GitHub organization.
      tags:
        - CLI
        - Kubernetes
        - Production

    - term: score-go
      definition: >-
        A Go library for parsing and loading Score specification files. Used by
        Score implementation authors to build new platform-specific implementations.
      tags:
        - Library
        - Go
        - Tooling

    - term: Resource Provisioner
      definition: >-
        A component within a Score implementation that knows how to create or reference
        a specific type of dependency (e.g., a postgres database, redis cache, or
        S3 bucket). Provisioners are implementation-specific and platform-aware.
      tags:
        - Core Concept
        - Resources

    - term: Resource Type
      definition: >-
        The abstract type of a workload dependency declared in the Score resources
        section (e.g., postgres, redis, mongodb, s3, volume). The implementation
        decides how to resolve each resource type for its target platform.
      tags:
        - Core Concept
        - Resources

    - term: Placeholder
      definition: >-
        A runtime reference in Score using ${...} syntax that is replaced by the
        implementation. Supports metadata references (${metadata.name}) and resource
        output references (${resources.db.connection_string}).
      tags:
        - Syntax
        - Technical

    - term: Config Drift
      definition: >-
        The problem Score is designed to solve: when application configuration
        diverges across environments (development, staging, production) causing
        bugs that only appear in certain environments.
      tags:
        - Problem Domain
        - Motivation

    - term: Platform-Agnostic
      definition: >-
        Score's key design principle: the score.yaml specification is not tied to any
        specific infrastructure platform. The same file works with Docker Compose,
        Kubernetes, Helm, Cloud Run, and other targets.
      tags:
        - Design Principle
        - Core Value

    - term: CNCF Sandbox
      definition: >-
        The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's Sandbox tier for early-stage projects.
        Score joined CNCF as a Sandbox project, indicating community interest and
        a path toward incubation and graduation.
      tags:
        - Governance
        - CNCF

    - term: Patch Template
      definition: >-
        A score-k8s feature allowing operators to override or customize generated
        Kubernetes manifests by applying JSON Merge Patch or Strategic Merge Patch
        on top of the Score-generated output.
      tags:
        - score-k8s
        - Kubernetes
        - Customization

    - term: Cognitive Load
      definition: >-
        The mental effort required of developers to manage platform-specific configuration.
        Reducing cognitive load is Score's primary value proposition — developers declare
        what they need; platforms decide how to provide it.
      tags:
        - Design Philosophy
        - Developer Experience

    - term: YAML Bloat
      definition: >-
        The proliferation of environment-specific YAML files that developers must
        maintain for each deployment target. Score reduces YAML bloat by providing
        a single workload definition file.
      tags:
        - Problem Domain
        - Motivation

    - term: Community Provisioners
      definition: >-
        A community-driven library of score-compose and score-k8s provisioners for
        common resource types, available at github.com/score-spec/community-provisioners.
      tags:
        - Community
        - Resources