> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.palliora.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Glossary

Short definitions for terms used across these docs. Longer explanations are linked where one exists.

**Accountable privacy**: One of Palliora's two inventions, with Compute Contracts. Data and identities are private by default, and are revealed only through a signed, publicly logged, Guardian-approved request, or by the user's own choice. See [Accountable privacy](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/accountable-privacy.md).

**Agent**: The Explorer and SDK name for a published Compute Artifact that serves an interactive session. Not the same thing as an AI coding agent.

**Agreement ID / Contract ID (CID)**: The unique identifier assigned to a Compute Contract once its required Guardians have signed it. Every later step (compute request, result, settlement) references this ID.

**Artifact ID**: The permanent, publicly recorded reference generated when a [Compute Artifact](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/compute-artifacts.md) is registered. Any number of Compute Contracts can point at the same Artifact ID.

**Builder / Requester**: Older names for the Publisher and the Retriever, still used on some diagrams.

**Calculator**: Older name for a compute node, still used in the SDK and on palliora.org.

**Compute Artifact**: The packaged, executable unit a Compute Contract runs: an image plus a manifest. Called an "agent" in the Explorer and "artefact" in some SDK function names. See [Compute Artifacts](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/compute-artifacts.md).

**Compute Contract**: One of Palliora's two inventions, with Accountable Privacy. A publicly recorded agreement that defines a computation's inputs, execution mode, participants, disclosure rules and fees, locked before anything runs. See [Compute Contracts](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/compute-contracts.md).

**Compute node**: A node that runs a Compute Artifact in the execution mode a contract specifies. Often the same physical machine as a Guardian.

**Confidential compute**: Running a computation on sensitive data without exposing that data to whoever operates the machine, today through a TEE. See [Confidential compute](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/confidential-compute.md).

**Coordination ledger**: The proof-of-stake ledger that records agreements, results, disclosure requests and payments. Manas on testnet. It is infrastructure for Guardians and validators, not a chain that applications move to.

**Data Accountability Layer**:

**Data Availability (DA)**: The guarantee that data committed to Palliora exists, hasn't been altered, and can be retrieved, without trusting a single storage provider. See [Data availability](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/data-availability.md).

**Disclosure request**: A signed, publicly logged request to reveal a specific sealed record. It needs the approval of a Guardian quorum.

**Economy protocol**:

**Execution mode**: How confidential a contract's execution is: trusted, TEE, SMPC or FHE. Chosen per contract.

**Guardian**: A node that signs contracts, holds a decryption key share, threshold-decrypts, reviews disclosure requests, and enforces a Compute Contract's terms as part of a quorum. See [Guardian](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/guardian.md).

**KZG commitment**: A compact cryptographic proof that a piece of data exists and hasn't changed, without revealing the data itself. Used throughout Palliora's Data Availability layer.

**Manas**: Palliora's public testnet. It runs the coordination ledger.

**milliPALI**: The unit the CLI uses for token amounts. 1,000 milliPALI is 1 PALI.

**PALI**: Palliora's native token, used to pay fees and staked by Guardians and validators as collateral. See [PALI token](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/pali-token.md).

**Palliora AI**: Palliora's product for private, accountable compute for AI. In development on testnet. See [Palliora AI](https://docs.palliora.org/products/palliora-ai.md).

**Palliora DeFi**: Palliora's product for private trading on any chain, accountable to regulators. Live on testnet on Hyperliquid and Ethereum. See [Palliora DeFi](https://docs.palliora.org/products/palliora-defi.md).

**Private computer for the open internet**: How Palliora describes itself. Compute Contracts and Accountable Privacy, delivered by the Guardian network and encrypted data availability, plugged into the chains and platforms applications already use.

**Provenance record**: A Palliora AI record of an AI agent run: which models and tools ran, with references to the agreements that coordinated them. See [Provenance](https://github.com/palliora-org/palliora-docs-with-ai/tree/main/ai/learn/concepts/provenance.md).

**Publisher**: The actor that uploads data or a Compute Artifact and sets the terms others pay to use it. See [Actors and roles](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/actors-and-roles.md).

**Quorum**: The minimum number of Guardians that must cooperate before a threshold-protected action, like decryption or disclosure, can happen.

**Retriever**: The actor that requests access to data or a computation's result, and pays the agreed fee.

**Revoker**: The party, or parties, that can decrypt a sealed identity once a disclosure request is approved. Never a single party acting alone.

**Selective disclosure (SeDe)**: The mechanism behind accountable privacy. Older material expands SeDe as "selective de-anonymization".

**Shielded account**: A user's private account in a Palliora-powered app, created by signing a message, not a transaction.

**Subscription contract**: A Compute Contract invoked repeatedly with fresh encrypted input until its budget or deadline runs out.

**TEE (Trusted Execution Environment)**: A secure enclave in a processor where code runs isolated from the rest of the system, including the host operating system. The main mechanism behind confidential compute today.

**Threshold encryption**: Splitting the ability to decrypt data across multiple parties, so no single one can decrypt it alone. See [Threshold encryption](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/threshold-encryption.md).

**Validator**: A node that maintains the coordination ledger: ordering transactions, producing and finalizing blocks. See [Validator](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/validator.md).

**Verifier**: The actor that checks a computation's result against the contract's own tests before settlement releases funds. See [Actors and roles](https://docs.palliora.org/learn/concepts/actors-and-roles.md).

**View key**: A scoped, time-bound key a user shares to let someone see specific records, for example a tax adviser or auditor.

**ZK nodes**:


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