Apps/Glossary
Glossary
The words these docs use for apps and themes, each with one meaning.
On this page
Apps
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| App | Software from a developer that a merchant installs into their store. It has a permanent handle and an app id, a UUID. |
| Manifest | poltura.app.json: what the app is, what it asks for and what it draws. poltura app build turns it into the release manifest, dist/manifest.json. See Manifest. |
| Release | One published version of an app, with its own id: its release manifest, workers and stylesheets. Each release is reviewed on its own. |
| Channel | production releases can be installed once approved; development releases are reviewed but never installed. |
| Review | The check a Poltura reviewer, outside your organization, makes of every release before merchants can install it. |
| Merchant | The owner or staff of a store, working in the Poltura admin. |
| Shopper | A visitor of the merchant's storefront. |
| Installation | One app in one store, with its own id, created when the merchant approves the app. Tokens, storage and webhooks belong to an installation. |
| Generation | A number on the installation that goes up when the merchant approves an update. Tokens from an earlier generation stop working. |
| Permission | Permission to read or change one kind of store data through the App API, such as products.read. The merchant approves each one. See Permissions and topics. |
| Installation access token | The short-lived token your server sends to the App API. It comes from the merchant's grant and never leaves your server. |
| Refresh token | The token your server exchanges for a new access token. It works once. |
| Worker | A piece of native UI: React with Poltura's components, bundled by the CLI and run in a separate, secure environment. It renders into one target, such as admin.order or storefront.product. |
| Block (app) | A storefront worker merchants place in the Customizer, described by a defineBlock definition. |
| Action | A call from a worker to your server. Poltura signs it and sends it to backendOrigin; your server answers. |
| Hosted page | A page you serve from your own server, shown in an iframe in the admin (adminFrame). |
| Session token | A 60-second statement from Poltura, requested by a hosted page, that tells your server which merchant and installation it is talking to. Not an API token. |
| Webhook | A signed POST from Poltura to your server when something happens in a store, such as order.created. |
| App API | The HTTP API your server calls with an installation access token, at /apps-api/v1. See App API. |
Themes
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Theme | The code and layout that draw a storefront. A store has one published theme and can have drafts. |
| Draft | The version of a theme you edit. Saving a draft never changes the live store. |
| Publish | Making a draft the live theme. Its code and layout go live together. |
| Section | A top-level part of a page, such as a hero or a product grid, defined with defineSection. |
| Block (theme) | A part inside a section, such as one quote in a quote wall, defined with defineBlock. |
| Setting | A field the merchant edits for a section or block in the Customizer, defined with field.*. |
| Customizer | The merchant's visual editor for the storefront. |
| Code editor | The editor for a theme's code, in the browser. |