Glossary

Quick reference for terms used throughout the SolidOS documentation.

Solid Ecosystem

Term	Definition
Solid	A set of open standards for decentralized data storage and access, created by Tim Berners-Lee
Solid Protocol	The specification defining how Solid servers and clients communicate
Pod	Personal Online Datastore — a user-controlled data store on the web
WebID	A URI that identifies a person (e.g. https://alice.example/profile/card#me)
Identity Provider (IDP)	Service that authenticates users via Solid-OIDC
Solid-OIDC	OpenID Connect-based authentication used by Solid

SolidOS

Term	Definition
SolidOS	An open-source, modular data browser for interacting with Solid pods
Data Browser	Former name for SolidOS; the interactive UI for browsing pod data
Data Kitchen	Desktop application that wraps SolidOS using Electron
Pane	A modular UI component that renders a specific RDF data type
Pane Registry	System that manages pane registration and selects which pane renders a resource
Pane Selection	Process where the registry asks each pane "can you render this?" and picks the most specific match
Singleton Store	The single shared RDF store instance used across all SolidOS components
Outliner	Internal component that handles navigation and pane display

Libraries

Term	Definition
rdflib.js	JavaScript library for RDF parsing, storage, fetching, and querying
solid-logic	Business logic layer: authentication, ACL management, type indexes
solid-ui	Reusable UI widgets, forms, and style utilities
solid-panes	Collection of built-in panes and the pane registration system
pane-registry	Shared package used by solid-panes and solid-ui for pane management
mashlib	Bundle that combines all SolidOS libraries into a single deployable package

rdflib.js Components

Term	Definition
Store	In-memory RDF graph database (also called IndexedFormula)
Fetcher	Loads RDF data from URIs into the store via HTTP GET
UpdateManager	Writes changes back to pods via HTTP PATCH
NamedNode	An RDF node representing a URI — created with sym()
Literal	An RDF value: string, number, date, etc. — created with lit()
Statement	An RDF triple/quad (subject, predicate, object, graph) — created with st()
Blank Node	An anonymous RDF node without a URI
Namespace	A helper for creating URIs with a common prefix (e.g. FOAF('name'))

RDF & Linked Data

Term	Definition
RDF	Resource Description Framework — the data model underlying Solid
Triple	The basic unit of RDF: subject → predicate → object
Quad	A triple with a fourth component: the named graph it belongs to
Graph	A collection of RDF triples; in rdflib, corresponds to a document
Linked Data	A method of publishing structured data so it can be interlinked across the web using URIs
URI / IRI	Uniform/Internationalized Resource Identifier — used to identify everything in RDF
SPARQL	Query language for RDF data
Vocabulary	A set of classes and properties for describing a domain (e.g. FOAF, vCard)
Ontology	A formal vocabulary with semantic relationships between terms

RDF Formats

Term	Definition
Turtle (.ttl)	Human-readable text format for RDF — the most common format in Solid
JSON-LD	JSON-based RDF format, good for JavaScript integration
N-Triples	Simple one-triple-per-line format
RDF/XML	Legacy XML-based RDF format
N3 Patch	Format used in PATCH requests to update RDF resources on Solid servers

Common Vocabularies

Prefix	Namespace	Used For
foaf	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/	People: Person, name, knows
vcard	http://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#	Contacts: Individual, fn, AddressBook
schema	http://schema.org/	General: Event, Article, Note
dct	http://purl.org/dc/terms/	Metadata: created, modified, title
ldp	http://www.w3.org/ns/ldp#	Containers: Container, contains, Resource
acl	http://www.w3.org/ns/auth/acl#	Permissions: Read, Write, Control
solid	http://www.w3.org/ns/solid/terms#	Solid-specific: oidcIssuer, publicTypeIndex
pim	http://www.w3.org/ns/pim/space#	Personal: storage, preferencesFile
ui	http://www.w3.org/ns/ui#	Forms: field definitions for solid-ui
meeting	http://www.w3.org/ns/pim/meeting#	Chat/meetings: LongChat, Meeting
sioc	http://rdfs.org/sioc/ns#	Social: Post, content
xsd	http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#	Data types: dateTime, integer, string

Access Control

Term	Definition
WAC	Web Access Control — the original Solid permission system
ACP	Access Control Policy — newer alternative to WAC
ACL file	A .acl resource containing permission rules for a resource
Access Modes	Permission types: Read, Write, Append, Control
acl:agent	Grants access to a specific WebID
acl:agentClass	Grants access to a class (e.g. foaf:Agent = everyone)
acl:default	Sets default permissions inherited by container contents
Trusted App	An application authorized by the user with specific permissions
Type Index	Maps RDF types to storage locations in a pod (public or private)

Built-in Panes

Pane	Renders	Data Type
Folder	File browser	ldp:Container
Contacts	Contact cards	vcard:Individual
Address Book	Contact lists	vcard:AddressBook
Chat	Messaging	meeting:LongChat
Meeting	Agendas	meeting:Meeting
Profile	User profiles	WebID documents
Source	Raw RDF	Any text resource
Issue	Issue tracker	wf:Issue

Pane API

Term	Definition
label(subject)	Function that returns a label if the pane can render this resource, or null
render(subject, dom)	Function that returns an HTMLElement displaying the resource
mintClass	The RDF class this pane can create new instances of
mintNew(context)	Function to create a new instance of the pane's data type

Solid Servers

Term	Definition
CSS	Community Solid Server — Node.js reference implementation
NSS	Node Solid Server — the original Solid server
ESS	Enterprise Solid Server — Inrupt's commercial offering

HTTP in Solid

Term	Definition
LDP	Linked Data Platform — the HTTP protocol Solid builds on
GET	Fetch a resource
PUT	Create or replace a resource
POST	Create a resource inside a container
PATCH	Update part of a resource (uses N3 Patch in Solid)
DELETE	Remove a resource
CORS	Cross-Origin Resource Sharing — required for browser-based Solid apps
Slug	HTTP header suggesting a name for a newly created resource