Glossary

Term	Definition
Agent	An AI integration artifact backed by a large language model (LLM). Agents can reason, call tools, and maintain conversation memory.
Agent Manager	WSO2 Agent Manager, the console where you deploy, run, and observe your agents. WSO2 Agent Builder Copilot can connect to it through the Agents & Deployments and Observability MCP servers.
Agentic Integration	The top-level unit of work in WSO2 Agent Builder. A Ballerina package that holds your AI agents with their tools, memory, and the triggers that invoke them.
any	A Ballerina type that represents any value except error. Used when the specific type is not known at compile time.
anydata	A Ballerina type that represents any pure data value (no behavioral types). Includes nil, boolean, int, float, decimal, string, xml, and structured values composed of anydata. Fundamental for serialization.
Ballerina	The cloud-native programming language powering WSO2 Agent Builder. Designed for network-distributed applications with built-in support for HTTP, data types, and concurrency.
Ballerina Central	The package registry at central.ballerina.io where connectors and libraries are published and discovered.
Ballerina.toml	The package manifest file that declares metadata, dependencies, and build options for a Ballerina package (an agentic integration or library).
CDC	Change Data Capture. A pattern for streaming database changes (inserts, updates, deletes) in real time. Supported by MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MS SQL connectors.
check	A Ballerina keyword that propagates errors. If the expression evaluates to an error, the enclosing function returns it immediately. Eliminates the need for verbose try-catch blocks.
Client	A Ballerina object that provides remote method calls to external systems such as databases, APIs, and message brokers. Remote methods are invoked using the -> operator.
Cloud.toml	Configuration file for cloud deployment settings including Docker image details, Kubernetes resource limits, autoscaling, and health probes.
Config.toml	Environment-specific runtime configuration file. Provides values for configurable variables. Should not be committed to version control when it contains secrets.
configurable	A Ballerina keyword that marks a variable as externally configurable via Config.toml, environment variables, or CLI arguments. Use = ? for required values with no default.
Connector	A pre-built ballerinax package for connecting to an external system (Salesforce, Kafka, MySQL, etc.). Handles authentication, serialization, and error mapping.
Data Mapper	A visual data transformation tool in the WSO2 Agent Builder design view. Maps fields between source and target schemas, with AI-assisted suggestions.
Dependencies.toml	Auto-generated lock file that records the exact resolved versions of all package dependencies. Should be committed to version control.
distinct error	A Ballerina error type with a unique identity, allowing pattern matching on specific error categories. Used to define application-specific error hierarchies.
do/on fail	Ballerina's error handling block. Code in do runs normally; on fail catches errors from check expressions. Also supported on while, foreach, lock, transaction, and retry blocks.
Durable Agent	An agent that runs as a workflow. It can wait days for a person or an event, and resumes after a restart. Also called a durable agentic workflow.
Error	A Ballerina basic type representing an error condition. Carries a message (string), optional cause (error?), and optional detail record. Errors are values, not exceptions.
Evalset	A set of sample conversations with your agent that you have reviewed and approved. Evaluations replay them to check the agent's behavior.
Evaluation	A function that scores your agent's behavior, created from a prebuilt template or built in the visual designer, with or without an evalset.
Event Source	A trigger that runs an agent when something happens in another system, such as a message on Kafka, RabbitMQ, or MQTT, or a database change captured by CDC.
File Source	A trigger that runs an agent when a file becomes available in a location, such as an FTP/SFTP server or a local folder.
Guardrail	A safety mechanism that constrains what an AI agent can take as input or produce as output. Used to enforce content policies and prevent unsafe responses.
ICP	Integration Control Plane. A dashboard for monitoring, managing, and troubleshooting running integrations in production. Provides metrics, logs, and artifact discovery.
json	A Ballerina union type: ()|boolean|int|float|decimal|string|json[]|map<json>. Represents any value serializable to JSON format.
Library	A shareable collection of reusable components, functions, or connectors packaged for distribution. Used across multiple agentic integrations or shared with a team.
Listener	A Ballerina construct that binds to a network port or event source and dispatches incoming requests/messages to services. Examples: http:Listener, kafka:Listener, task:Listener.
LLM	Large language model. The foundation model that backs an agent or natural function call.
MCP	Model Context Protocol. An open standard that lets AI agents discover and call integration functions as tools.
Module	A sub-unit of a Ballerina package. A package has a default module (root) and can contain multiple named modules under the modules/ directory.
Natural Function	An LLM call treated as a typed function call in Ballerina. You define input/output types and the platform handles the prompt, API call, and response parsing.
Package	The unit of code distribution in Ballerina. Defined by Ballerina.toml and publishable to Ballerina Central. Contains one or more modules. At the product level, users typically speak of agentic integrations or libraries rather than packages.
Pro-code	The Ballerina source-editing mode in WSO2 Agent Builder. Stays in sync with the visual designer, with full auto-complete, type checking, and debugging.
Project	A workspace that organizes your agentic integrations and libraries, with their dependencies, configuration, and deployment artifacts. Defined by Ballerina.toml.
Query Expression	Ballerina's SQL-like syntax for filtering, transforming, and aggregating data within code. Supports from, where, let, select, order by, limit, and join clauses.
RAG	Retrieval-Augmented Generation. A pattern that combines document retrieval from a vector database with LLM generation for knowledge-grounded AI responses.
Record	A Ballerina structural type with named fields. The primary data structure for representing JSON-like data with compile-time type safety. Can be open (allows extra fields) or closed.
Resource Function	A function in a Ballerina service that maps to an HTTP method and path. Example: resource function get customers() handles GET /customers.
Service	A Ballerina construct that exposes endpoints over HTTP, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket, or TCP.
Strand	Ballerina's lightweight execution unit (similar to a green thread or goroutine). Workers and async calls execute on strands managed by the Ballerina scheduler.
Structural Typing	Ballerina's type compatibility model. Types are compatible based on their structure (shape of values) rather than their declared names.
Tool calling	The mechanism by which an LLM-backed agent invokes typed functions, including MCP tools, to act on external systems.
Transaction	A Ballerina language construct for coordinating atomic operations across multiple resources. Supports distributed transactions with automatic rollback on failure.
Try It	A built-in tool in WSO2 Agent Builder for sending test requests to running services and viewing responses inline.
Union Type	A Ballerina type that can hold values of multiple types. Written as TypeA|TypeB. Used extensively for error handling (string|error) and optional values (T? is T|()).
Visual Designer	The visual editor in WSO2 Agent Builder for building agents and their logic. Stays in sync with the Ballerina source.
Worker	A Ballerina concurrency primitive. Workers execute code in parallel within a function and can communicate via message passing using the -> and <- operators.
WSO2 Agent Builder	The editor for building AI agents. It provides a visual designer and a Ballerina source editor that stay in sync.
WSO2 Agent Builder Copilot	The AI assistant built into WSO2 Agent Builder. It builds, changes, runs, tests, and evaluates your agents in a chat.
WSO2 Cloud	The WSO2 cloud platform for deploying and managing your agents and MCP servers without managing infrastructure.
xml	A Ballerina built-in sequence type for XML data. Supports elements, text, comments, and processing instructions with XPath-like navigation syntax.