Glossary

One-sentence definitions of the terms indx uses, linked to the pages that explain them.

Short definitions, one sentence each. The full glossary, including the terms to avoid, is canonical.

The stages

plan() — cheaply observes an input and returns an explainable RoutePlan without executing anything. (How it works)
encode() — executes a supplied or fresh plan into blocks, embeddings, usage, and a trace. (How it works)
embed() — encodes a text or image query into a named embedding space; document vectors come from encode(). (Interfaces)
preflight — the cheap, local, deterministic evidence-gathering before routing: no OCR, no model, no network. (Routing)

RoutePlan — the durable plan artifact: routes, fallbacks, estimates, and the digest, policy version, and snapshot it is bound to. (Routing)
routing ladder — the escalation order over capability kinds: native text layer → OCR → VLM → manual review. (Routing)
fallback — an ordered alternative declared in the plan; execution may never use anything else. (Routing)
manual review — the terminal rung; a human can read anything, so nothing is silently dropped. (FAQ)
signature nomination — a recognized document type placing a specialist ahead of the generic ladder, never in place of it. (Routing)
source digest — the sha256: content hash a plan is bound to; execution rejects a mismatch with 409. (Routing)
policy version — stamped into every plan; bumped whenever the decision or the plan artifact changes. (Routing)

capability — a unit of processing work with a stable, provider-neutral ID that routing refers to. (Extend indx)
capability snapshot — the content-addressed inventory of capabilities a plan is decided against. (Routing)
provider — the plugin contract: descriptors() advertises cheaply, create() lazily builds the real engine. (Extend indx)
entry-point group — indx.capabilities, through which installed distributions advertise providers, observers, and loaders. (Extend indx)
extras — optional dependency sets gating heavy engines; a missing extra shows as an unavailable descriptor. (Getting started)

block — one node of the addressable output tree: kind, text, status, embeddings, provenance. (Interfaces)
chunk — the embeddable unit; only chunk blocks carry document vectors. (Extend: chunker)
execution trace — the record of every capability attempted per scope, including failures; it is what makes a fallback visible. (Interfaces)
embedding space — a versioned declaration of dimension, metric, and the embedders forming it, owned by one provider. (Extend: embedding space)