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Terminology

An overview of the terminology used in Ory Cloud documentation.
If you think a term is missing here, please let us know.

Ory Cloud Terms

Ory Cloud Project

A single deployment of Ory Cloud. Each project runs its own copy of the Ory services. Learn more about Ory Cloud Projects.

Ory Cloud Project Settings

The configuration for each individual Ory Project Cloud can be changed in the Ory Project Settings.

Ory Cloud Console

The graphical user interface that can be used to administer and manage Ory Cloud Projects. You can it at https://console.ory.sh/.

Ory SDK URL

The environmental variable ORY_SDK_URL specifies where the Ory instance is available. It can be found in the "API & Services" section of your Ory Cloud Console.

Identity Schema

The JSON Schema that defines an identity in an Ory Cloud Project.

Ory Login Session

A cookie or token that's stored in the users' Browser or API Client. It represents a successful Login Flow and lets the user access the authenticated identity.

Ory Project Slug

A generic identifier for each Ory Cloud project. It has the format adjective-name-randomstring for example: suspicious-curran-y23rz7k2t.

Ory Project Public API

The Ory Kratos endpoint for accessing your project's public API, it's composed like so: https://$ORY_PROJECT_SLUG/api/kratos/public.

Ory Project Admin API

The Ory Kratos endpoint for accessing your project's administrative API, it's composed like so: https://$ORY_PROJECT_SLUG/api/kratos/admin.

Basics

End-User

The person who actually uses a Web-App, SPA, or mobile App that uses Ory Cloud.

Identity

The "who" of the application. This can be an employee, customer, external developer, or a programmatic identity like an IoT device, application, or another kind of machine actor. Other often used aliases include "user", "account", or "user account".

Self-services

Interfaces and flows in Ory Cloud that allow end-users to consume services without the direct involvement of service employees. A common example would be when someone signs up for a service without interacting directly to support.

Browser Client

End-user side. A browser client refers to the Web browser in the user's machine or mobile device.

API Client

End-user side. A browser client refers to the Web browser in the user's machine or mobile device.

Web App

A web application is a server-side application that renders HTML; often written in PHP, Java, Go, ExpressJS, etc... Also called "server-side browser client", since most of the application logic is performed on the server-side.

Single Page Application

A Single Page Application (or SPA) is a web application that dynamically rewrites the current web page with new data; often written in React, Angular, Next, etc... Also called "client-side browser client", since most of the application logic is performed in the end-users browser, so on the client-side.

Native App

A native application is built for a specific device platform such as iOs, Android, Windows, smartTV, or others. Also called "client without browser", since the end-user doesn't use a browser directly, all flows go directly through the native app UI.

Self-Service Flows

Registration Flow

The path that a user has to take in order to create an identity at your application.

Login Flow

The path that a user has to take in order to authenticate (i.e. prove they're a certain identity) at your application.

Recovery Flow

The path that a user has to take in order to recover access to their account, for example through a verified email or other means.