> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.visdom.virtuslab.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.visdom.virtuslab.com/visdom-control-plane/concepts.md).

# Concepts

The objects the Control Plane manages and the words used for them in the UI and the API.

**Workspace.** The whole installation. Workspace-scoped roles and secrets apply everywhere. There is one workspace per installation today.

**Project.** The unit every Visdom product works in. A project has a name, a description and a slug; the slug is how other products refer to it, so it never changes. A project is archived, not deleted.

**Repository.** A git repository registered in a project: name, clone URL, branch and, for GitHub, the installation ID of the GitHub App that agents use. The Control Plane keeps the configuration; the products that need the code fetch it themselves.

**Repository authentication.** One access token per project, used for every repository in it. Stored encrypted and given only to the products, never shown back to a person.

**User.** A person, created the first time they sign in through Keycloak. A user can be disabled, which removes all their access at once.

**Machine principal.** A Keycloak service account used by another Visdom product to call the Control Plane. It has no user record and cannot sign in to the UI.

**App.** One Visdom product in the permission catalogue: Orchestrator, Context Fabric, Tracing or Control Plane.

**Sign-in access.** The key that lets a person into an app at all. Without it, every other role in that app is inert.

**Role.** A named permission in an app – Viewer, Operator, Admin and, for Orchestrator, the building-blocks roles. Each role has a fixed **scope**: the workspace or a project.

**Grant.** One role given to one user, at the workspace or for one project. A grant records who gave it and when.

**Effective permissions.** The answer to *what may this person do, here*: the grants that apply to a user in a project, with admins holding everything. Every product reads it from the same endpoint.

**Project sync.** The event a product receives when a project or its repositories change, so it never works from a stale copy.

**Admin.** The Keycloak realm role `control-plane-admin`, or the granted Control Plane Admin role. Admins create and archive projects, write grants, disable users, manage workspace secrets and set the workspace timezone.


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