One system built and kept from one file: a declaration describes the machine, an image is built from it, and the running machine is kept matching it. This glossary fixes the words the project argues with; docs/glossary.md serves readers new to the underlying Linux ideas.
Declaration:
The kuma.toml stating the whole machine. The one file a person
edits; everything else in the system derives from it.
Avoid: config, spec, manifest
Base:
The floor image kuma composes from Fedora's repositories when the
declaration names no system.base: Fedora's minimal bootc core plus
what a real machine needs, nothing removed after the fact.
Avoid: base image (say "declared base" for the image system.base
names; the unqualified "base" is always the composed one)
Content tag: The composed base's name: a hash of the base manifest that produced it. A build can name its base before any compose has run, and a changed manifest cannot reuse a stale one. Avoid: cache key, version tag
Operating tools: The package class the base carries for operating the machine: ping, ip, the ssh client, the pager, curl. Machine operation, not work; editors and toolchains are work and belong to the declaration's package lists. Avoid: default packages, utils, CLI tools
Floor: The set of security settings baked into every image that no declaration can turn off. Avoid: hardening config, security baseline
Deployment: One bootable instance of the image on disk. The machine boots one of its slots; going back is a reboot. Avoid: install, snapshot (a snapshot is home's copy, a different thing)
Drift: The running machine differing from the declaration. Avoid: divergence, desync
Convergence: Bringing the running machine back to the declaration, at boot and on the daily timer, so an update lands completely or not at all. Avoid: sync (that is the verb, not the concept), reconcile
Golden: A checked-in file pinning generated output byte for byte. A moving golden is the review, not noise. Avoid: snapshot test, fixture
Seam: The desktop-entry layer between the shell and the declaration's verbs: entries the shell searches, every exec through kuma-launch. Avoid: launcher entries, shortcuts