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Control Plane - Builder Platform Team Glossary

This glossary page is meant to explain advanced terms used by the Platform Team. If you are a Builder user or you want to understand the general concepts of the Witboost Builder, we recommend checking out the Builder User Glossary instead.

note

If you're part of the Platform Team, we still encourage going first through the User Glossary as there are concepts a Platform Team member must be familiar as well.

Entity​

Entities are the core of the Builder module. They are defined as YAML files, and for systems and components the content of these files depend on the type of entity chosen for development. There are two types of entity content for systems and components: Legacy (v1) and Skeleton (v2) entities, which completely change the available features for edit and reverse provisioning.

When an entity is registered into Witboost (by creating it using a template or by registering an existing catalog-info.yaml file) a Location entity is saved into the database. This Location gets then processed into the appropriate entity.

Skeleton entities​

A Skeleton Entity is a dynamic, templated entity introduced in Witboost 2.3 and later.

  • Must contain %SKELETON at the very top of catalog-info.yaml.
  • Uses Nunjucks templating to inject values dynamically.
  • Reads editable data from a separate parameters.yaml file.
  • Fully compatible with v2 Creation, Edit, and Reverse Provisioning Templates.
  • Preferred model for all new systems and components.

Skeleton Entities offer:

  • Cleaner separation of structure (catalog-info.yaml) and content (parameters.yaml)
  • Safer editing via visual wizards
  • Improved UI comparisons and field-level updates

Legacy entities​

A Legacy Entity is any system or component that was created before Skeleton Entities were introduced (i.e., before Witboost 2.3), or that does not contain the %SKELETON directive at the top of its catalog-info.yaml.

  • Fully static: All its metadata are hardcoded directly in the catalog-info.yaml YAML file.
  • Edited directly via catalog-info.yaml — both by users and by automation tools.
  • May require more YAML knowledge for editing or maintenance.

Location entities​

A Location entity holds a reference to the source entity's catalog-info.yaml. The first processing of the location inserts the related entity in the Witboost entities. Then each location is periodically read again to detect changes and update the related entity in the Witboost entities.

Infrastructure Template ID​

The Infrastructure Template ID is an internal ID used by Witboost to uniquely identify a Tech Adapter in the platform. It's different from the Use Case Template ID which identifies the Template that generated a specific entity. The Infrastructure Template ID is stored as part of the entity metadata in order to tell Witboost which Tech Adapter to contact to deploy the component.

Use Case Template ID​

The Use Case Template ID is an internal ID used by Witboost to uniquely identify the Template that generated a specific entity. It's different from the Infrastructure Template ID which identify the Tech Adapter that performs the physical integration between Witboost and the Data Plane, which can support different Templates.