Glossary
A comprehensive reference of terms used throughout TitanRDM.
A
Account
The top-level organisational unit in TitanRDM. Each account is an isolated tenant with its own users, domains, branches, tables, and billing subscription. Accounts are identified by a unique subdomain (e.g., acme.titanrdm.com).
Account Administrator
A user who belongs to the Account Administrator user group. Account Administrators can manage users, billing, account settings, OAuth applications, and all domains and branches. See Managing Users.
Activation
The process of setting up a new account after sign-up. During activation, TitanRDM creates the tenant database, default branch (prod), default domain, system user groups, and initial permissions. The account must be activated before it can be used.
Ancestor (Branch)
A branch's chain of parent branches. For example, if private branch was created from test, which was created from prod, then prod and test are ancestors of the private branch.
API Scope
A permission granted to an OAuth token that determines what actions it can perform. Scopes include api:read, api:write, api:delete, and api:admin. See Authentication.
Approver
A user who has approve permission on a branch. Approvers can approve or reject deployments and promotions targeting that branch. See Permissions.
B
Billing Status
The current state of an account's subscription payment. Values include: - current — payments are up to date - overdue — payment has failed and is past the grace period; write operations are blocked - cancelled — subscription has been cancelled
See Billing and Usage.
Branch
An isolated environment within an account. Each branch has its own database schema containing deployed tables. Branches enable parallel development and safe change management. See Branches.
Branch Type
Either shared (visible to all users with access) or private (visible only to the owner and users with explicit group membership). Private branches are automatically created for developers on Business and Enterprise plans.
C
Client Credentials (OAuth)
An OAuth 2.0 grant type for machine-to-machine authentication. No user context is provided — actions are not attributed to a specific user. Best for automated pipelines and ETL jobs. See Authentication.
Clone
The process of copying a table definition (including all columns and import mappings) from a higher branch to a lower branch. Cloning preserves the table's key for tracking across branches. See Cloning Tables.
Column Definition
The metadata describing a single column within a table definition: name, data type, length, scale, primary key flag, required flag, foreign key reference, valid values, and description. See Creating Tables.
Correlation Code
A user-supplied or auto-generated string that identifies an import or export operation. Useful for tracking operations across external systems and matching API responses to your internal job IDs.
D
Data Type
The type of data a column stores. Supported types include: varchar, character, text, integer, smallint, bigint, decimal, boolean, timestamp, timestamptz, time, timetz, date, real, double, binary. See Column Types Reference.
Database Suffix
The PostgreSQL schema name used by a branch to store its deployed tables. Automatically generated from the branch name. The suffix stg is reserved for import staging tables.
Deployment
The process of applying table definition changes to the physical database. A deployment compares the current table definition against the deployed version, generates DDL diffs (table changes, attribute changes, column changes, column attribute changes), and executes them. See Deploying Changes.
Deployment Action
An audit trail entry recording a specific event during a deployment's lifecycle: creation, request sent, approval, rejection, abandonment, or execution.
Developer
A license type for users who need full access to table management, deployments, promotions, and the API. Developers are billed at a higher per-seat rate than End Users. See Managing Users.
Diff
The set of differences between two versions of a table definition or its columns. Diffs are computed during deployments (table definition vs deployed table) and promotions (source branch vs target branch). Categories include table diffs, table attribute diffs, column diffs, and column attribute diffs.
Domain
An organisational grouping for table definitions (e.g., "Finance", "HR", "Product"). Domains provide logical separation and can have their own user groups and permissions. See Domains.
E
End User
A license type for users who only need to view and edit data — they cannot modify table structures, run deployments, or use the API. End Users are billed at a lower per-seat rate. See Managing Users.
Export
The process of extracting data from a deployed table into a downloadable file. See Exporting Data.
F
Foreign Key (aka Lookup Table)
A column that references the primary key of another table definition. Foreign keys create relationships between tables and enable lookup dropdowns in the data grid. See Foreign Keys.
Free Tier
The entry-level plan with no subscription cost. Includes 2 Developer seats and 3 End User seats, 1 domain, limited storage, and basic API access. Does not include branching or promotions. See Plans and Tiers.
I
Import
The process of loading data from external files (CSV, Excel, JSON, Parquet) into a deployed table. Imports are tracked with correlation codes, per-table metrics, and an action audit trail. See Importing Data.
Import Mapping
A reusable configuration that maps file column names to table column names. Each table can have multiple import mappings, with one marked as the default. See Import Mappings.
Import Schema
The process of auto-generating column definitions from a data file. TitanRDM reads the file headers and infers data types to create columns automatically. See Import Schema.
Integration Branch
A special shared branch (at most one per account) used as an intermediary between private development branches and the production branch. Changes are promoted from development branches to the integration branch for testing before being promoted to production.
K
Key
A unique, immutable identifier assigned to table definitions, column definitions, and import mappings when they are created. Keys are used to track objects across branches during cloning and promotion, ensuring that the same logical entity is correctly matched even if its name or other attributes have changed.
L
License Type
The type of access granted to a user: Developer or End User. Determines what features the user can access and how they are billed. See Managing Users.
Lookup Display Column
The column from a referenced (foreign key) table that is shown in dropdown lists when editing data. For example, if a "Country" table has columns code and name, you would set name as the lookup display column so users see country names instead of codes.
M
Magic Link
A passwordless authentication method. Users receive a one-time login link via email that signs them in without entering a password.
O
OAuth Application
A set of API credentials (Client ID and Client Secret) registered in TitanRDM. Each OAuth application is scoped to a single account and can request specific scopes. See OAuth Applications.
Overage Billing
An optional setting that allows usage to exceed plan limits at an additional per-unit cost, rather than blocking operations. Can be toggled on or off by Account Administrators. See Billing and Usage.
P
Pagination
The API returns collection results in pages. Controlled via page and per_page query parameters (default 100, max 1000). Response includes a meta object with page, per_page, total_count, and total_pages.
Permission
A record granting a user group a specific action on a specific resource. Permissions are polymorphic — the resource can be an account, domain, branch, or table definition. Permission types include edit, approve, develop, data manager, and admin. See Permissions.
Plan
The subscription tier of an account: Free, Team, Business, or Enterprise. Each plan has different limits for users, domains, branches, storage, API calls, imports, and exports. See Plans and Tiers.
Primary Key
One or more columns that uniquely identify each row in a table. Primary key columns are marked with is_primary_key: true. During imports, primary keys determine whether a row is inserted (new key) or updated (existing key).
Private Branch
A branch visible only to its owner and users explicitly granted access via user groups. Automatically created for each Developer on Business and Enterprise plans. See Branches.
Promotion
The process of moving table definitions from one branch to another (typically from a development branch to test or production). Promotions compute diffs, support approval workflows, and clone table definitions to the target branch. See Promoting Changes.
Promotion Action
An audit trail entry recording a specific event during a promotion's lifecycle: creation, request sent, approval, rejection, cancellation, abandonment, or execution.
R
Read-Only Mode
A restricted state triggered when an account's billing is overdue (payment failed and past the 7-day grace period). In read-only mode, users can view data but cannot create, update, or delete anything. Resolved by updating the payment method.
S
Seat
A billing unit representing one user. Accounts are billed per seat, with separate rates for Developer and End User seats. Adding or removing users automatically adjusts the subscription quantity via Stripe. See Billing and Usage.
Shared Branch
A branch visible to all users who have appropriate domain or account-level permissions. The default test and prod branches are shared branches.
Soft Delete
A deletion strategy where records are marked as deleted (trdm_is_deleted = true for data rows, is_deleted = true for definitions) rather than being physically removed. Soft-deleted rows are excluded from grid queries but remain in the database.
Staging Schema
A PostgreSQL schema named stg reserved for temporary tables used during data imports. Import files are loaded into staging tables, processed, and then merged into the target deployed table.
Stripe
The third-party payment platform used by TitanRDM for subscription billing, seat management, plan changes, and usage-based overage billing. See Billing and Usage.
Subdomain
The unique identifier for an account in the URL (e.g., acme in acme.app.titanrdm.com). Set during account registration and used for tenant resolution.
System Column
Columns automatically added to every deployed table by TitanRDM:
- trdm_sk — surrogate key (auto-incrementing integer)
- trdm_created_at — timestamp when the row was created
- trdm_updated_at — timestamp when the row was last modified
- trdm_is_deleted — soft-delete flag (boolean)
System User Group
A user group automatically created by TitanRDM when an account, domain, branch, or table definition is created. System groups cannot be deleted by users. Examples: "Account Administrator", "Account Developer", "Branch prod Editor".
T
Table Definition
The blueprint or schema for a reference data table. Contains metadata (name, description, domain, load type) and a collection of column definitions. Must be deployed before data can be entered. See Table Definitions.
Tenant
See Account. In TitanRDM's multi-tenant architecture, each account is a tenant with complete data isolation.
Tenant Database
A dedicated PostgreSQL database created for each account during activation. Contains branch schemas and deployed tables. Isolated from all other accounts' databases.
U
Usage Record
A tracked metric for an account: storage (MB), API calls, imports, or exports. Usage is recorded periodically and compared against plan limits. When limits are exceeded, operations are blocked (or charged at overage rates if overage billing is enabled).
User Group
A named collection of users that can be assigned permissions. User groups are the unit of access control — permissions are granted to groups, not individual users. See User Groups.
V
Valid Values
An optional comma-delimited list of allowed values for a column (e.g., Active,Inactive,Pending). When set, the data grid shows a dropdown selector and validates input against the list.