GLOSSARY.md

Glossary

Domain language for Frequency, a platform for place-based, in-person community practice. The vocabulary is deliberate; the same words appear in the schema, the URLs, and the UI. See DATABASE.md for the tables behind these.

Naming is canon-locked. docs/NAMING.md (ADR-208) is the single source of truth for every game/community term: ranks, tiers, Pillars, Co-op, Circle Current, the two role axes. This glossary describes the tables and how the canon words map to them; where it once defined a name, it now points to NAMING.md. If a term here and NAMING.md ever disagree, NAMING.md wins.

⚠️ Code paths in this glossary are partly stale (checked 2026-09-04): six of the twelve lib/ modules it names (lib/practice-shelf.ts, lib/practice-streaks-job.ts, lib/coop-pulse.ts, lib/awards/witnessed.ts, lib/journey-arc.ts, lib/journey-coop.ts) are no longer in the tree. Trust the term, verify the path; ARCHITECTURE.md is the doc held to the tree by pnpm check:arch-doc. Status of any work lives in docs/BUILD-BACKLOG.json.

The community hierarchy

Four product nouns, plus Channels as the topical layer. CORE-MODEL.md is commercial law; NAMING.md wins names. Hubs and Nexuses emerge from clustering; they are not appointed top-down. An Outpost is not the top unit.

Term	Table	Meaning
Member	profiles	A person. Free to join.
Space	spaces	A business's home on Frequency.
Circle	circles	A room inside a Space, where a group meets. type is in-person (cap 50) or online (cap 100). Has location fields (city, neighborhood, lat/lng, timezone). Declares one topical Channel.
Event	events, event_rsvps	When the room is open.
Channel	topical_channels	Global topics you tune into. Circles run them locally. "Interests" is retired.

Place scaffolding (not primary nav, not the top product unit). Member URLs fold into Space (LIVE-242 / ADR-1439); these tables remain because Circles still attach through circles.hub_id.

Term	Table	Meaning
Hub	hubs	Geography cluster of up to 5 Circles. hubs.space_id is the Space that now is that cluster.
Nexus	nexuses	Geography cluster of Hubs. nexuses.space_id is the containing Space.
Outpost	outposts	The brick-and-mortar home base of a Nexus: one per Nexus, the seed toward a Lab (NAMING.md §Community structure). Circles meet in homes/public spaces, never Outposts. When a Frequency Lab (standalone for-profit venue) exists in the Nexus, the Outpost HQ lives there. Not the top unit.
Nexus region	nexus_regions	Legacy geography tree. Being phased out.

There is ONE "channel" concept: topical_channels. Global topical forums, janitor-managed, sorted under a Pillar via pillar_id. It powers the /channels UI, the /admin/channels console, and the Channel forum (posts.scope_id = a topical channel id). Circles link via circles.topical_channel_id; members "tune in" via topical_channel_memberships.

The hierarchy-v2 channels / channel_memberships pair (hub/nexus/outpost "focus groups", 20240102000000) was replaced by this one a month later and dropped, empty, on 2026-09-15 (ADR-1349). Nothing in the tree or the schema carries it; older docs and ADRs that mention it are history.

Roles: two independent axes (canon: NAMING.md §Roles)

Roles are two orthogonal axes plus billing as a third independent attribute (ADR-208; schema split in migration 20260613000050). NAMING.md §Roles is the canonical definition; ROLES.md carries the longer-form spec and ONBOARDING-BUILD-LIST.md §11 the build plan.

• community_role: the aspirational community trust ladder, ascending: member → crew → host → guide → mentor.
  • member: signed up, attended a circle/event (free tier default).
  • crew: the paid membership tier; participation + leadership training tracks. Assignment rule (locked): community_role='crew' is auto-set when billing goes paid (the billing webhook applies it); membership_tier stays the payment source of truth. "Crew = paid" is a business rule, not a schema coupling.
  • host: Crew volunteering as a Circle host; can post announcements, moderate, broadcast dispatches. · guide: oversees local hosts. · mentor: oversees Guides in a Nexus.
  • "host+" = host or above within community_role only.
• web_role: the operational staff axis (not aspirational): admin (Site Admin) | janitor (Executive Admin) | none. It's the coarse gate for who may enter admin surfaces (and the janitor-only crown jewels). The team_members staff matrix (ADR-127) stays side-by-side as the fine-grained per-domain capability layer for scoped staff hires. profiles.web_role is the new column (migration 20260613000050); the deprecated community_role admin/janitor rungs are kept as no-ops for enum-order stability but no longer consulted by staff gates.
• Billing (membership_tier): a third, independent attribute, and exactly two rungs: Member (free) → Crew (paid). Supporter is a BADGE on Crew (profiles.is_supporter), not a rung: the tier was retired on 2026-08-24 and the column CHECKs to free / crew.

Community-ladder authz still uses the HIERARCHY index-comparison pattern (get_my_role() >= 'host'); staff gates read get_my_web_role().

Content & interaction

Term	Table(s)	Meaning
Post	posts	Feed content scoped to a Circle (group visibility) or broadcast wider (cluster) for host announcements.
Dispatch	dispatches	Broadcast content (dispatch_type: post / poll / challenge / article) shown at /nearby. Has comments, likes, polls.
Room	rooms, room_members, room_messages	Group chat spaces (crew+ can create). Distinct from DMs.
Conversation	conversations, messages, conversation_participants	1:1 and group direct messages.
Event	events, event_rsvps	Gatherings. Support recurrence (materialised occurrences, not virtual) and ICS export.
Report	reports	Moderation queue item targeting a post/dispatch/comment/member/event.

Gamification: "The Quest"

The game is named The Quest. It is seasonal: a 13-week cycle aligned to the natural calendar (spring / summer / fall / winter) that resets, so every season is a fresh climb.

Naming is canon-locked. See NAMING.md §The Quest (ADR-208). The hierarchy is Quest → Journey → Practice: a Quest (table quests) is one season's 13-week instance and its official, free collection of three Journeys (Mind / Body / Spirit); a Journey (journey_plans) is a set of practices you move through; a practice is the atomic real-world act you do. Everything is free. The Quest is the brand for the year-round game (never in schema); a quests row always means the season instance ("Seasonal Quest" is retired phrasing). Named seasons: Stretch (Summer) / Shed (Autumn) / Sit (Winter) / Sprout (Spring). Always say Zaps/Gems, never "points". (Retired & gone: the legacy action-chain "Arc" engine (dropped, ADR-152); the old 6-rank Zap-threshold ladder; per-practice intensity tiers: do not reintroduce.)

Two currencies, split by where the activity happens. The rule is canonical (ADR-139): anything online → Gems; anything in real life → Zaps, and it applies to base actions AND the meta-layer (achievements, season challenges, quests/arcs, streaks). A milestone pays the currency of the act it rewards: an in-person challenge ("Attend 8 events") pays zaps; an online one ("Make 5 posts") pays gems. The single source of truth is currencyForCriteria / currencyForSource (lib/engagement/currency.ts).

• Gems: earned through internal, on-platform (web) engagement (posts, comments, reactions, logins, RSVPs, joins, welcomes). gem_transactions, gem_config, store_items, store_redemptions. The spendable currency: buy digital badges/cosmetics and trade for physical merch in the web store. awardGems() (lib/gems.ts). Tracked as lifetime_gems + current_season_gems.
• Zaps: earned through external + in-person activity: showing up, hosting, founding/leading a circle, outreach + invites that land, ghost-node captures, business/NFC programs, and every practice log (personal or circle, the real-world doing). Finishing a Journey pays +75 Zaps + a Pillar Trophy and no Gems (the v2 escalating ladder is RETIRED, ADR-305; the third finish mints the Certificate, which pays its own 100 Gems). An Expression Challenge pays +50 Zaps in person at a Circle, or +30 Gems posted solo online. Zaps accumulate during the season and roll into Gems at season end (5:1 flat). They drive Amplitude (lifetime total) but no longer gate season rank directly. Ranks are completion-based (see Season ranks below). awardZaps() (lib/zaps.ts). Migration 20260628010000_quest_completion_model.sql moved rank advancement off the Zap trigger.
• Twin ledgers + the Vault log. Both currencies write one row per grant (gem_transactions / zap_transactions); an AFTER INSERT trigger on each is the only place profile totals move. Rank advancement is now fired by Journey completion, not the Zap trigger. Those ledgers back the member-facing "how you earned" log in the Vault (/crew/store/ledger, lib/economy/ledger.ts). awardZaps/awardGems only ever append a ledger row. (Never call it a "points log"; it's Zaps/Gems.)
• Season rollover: at season end, reset_season() (migration 20260614200000, ADR-219) converts floor(season_zaps / 5) into Gems flat for everyone (no rank bonus, the per-rank bonus is retired; per-Journey rewards replace it), mints a season_trophies row for everyone who played, then zeroes season counters, all claim-then-pay via reward_grants. So Zaps are the seasonal "doing", Gems are the durable spendable.
• Season ranks (completion-based): ghost → initiate → adept → master (4 values, migration 20260628010000_quest_completion_model.sql; the old 6-rank Zap-threshold ladder Echo/Signal/Beacon/Conduit/Luminary is retired). Rank = how many Journeys the member finished this season: 0 = Ghost, 1 = Initiate, 2 = Adept, 3 = Master. Advances automatically the moment a Journey finishes. No Zap threshold, no manual promotion, no challenge gate. rankForCompletion(journeysFinished).
• Amplitude: lifetime XP (profiles.amplitude, ADR-219): cumulative Zaps ever earned, hosting-class actions 2×, accrued only by after_zap_transaction(). Never resets, never spent, never gates play. Level = largest L with 50·L·(L+1) ≤ amplitude (lib/amplitude.ts); shown beside the season rank. Supersedes the lifetime-rank display (the lifetime_rank column stays for the retro rules). Gem tiers (New→Legend) are retired.
• Practice weight class: practices.weight_class ∈ light|standard|heavy is the per-log Zap payout fallback (8/12/15, live in zap_config; ADR-219), used when a practice has no explicit reward_zaps. A property of the practice, never the member's depth tier. The explicit per-log VALUE is reward_zaps when set (the Quest library values by CADENCE: Daily 10 / 3x-week 15 / Weekly 25, ADR-303); practiceZapValue() resolves value-then-fallback for both the award path and every display.
• Practice Shelf: the profile module of per-practice awards (ADR-219): the consistency ladder (In Motion 2w / Groove 4w / Deep Groove 8w / Full Cycle 13w, only Full Cycle pays, +50⚡ once per practice) and the depth ladder (10/25/50/100 Deep). Cache: practice_streaks; truth derives from practice_logs (lib/practice-shelf.ts, nightly lib/practice-streaks-job.ts).
• Co-op Pulse: +3⚡ when 3+ active members of one circle each log the same adopted Journey the same day (nightly lib/coop-pulse.ts; once per member/journey/date). Feeds Carrier Wave and the circle-level Co-op Synchrony award.
• Witnessed awards: peer-granted (witnessed_grants, ADR-219): Carried the Room (circle Host → a member of their circle) and Strong Signal (any member), each once per season per granter; displayed with the granted-by name (lib/awards/witnessed.ts).
• Quests & Journeys: hierarchy Quest → Journey → Practice (canon; see NAMING.md and THE-QUEST.md). A Quest (quests) is a season's official, free container of exactly three Journeys (Mind, Body, Spirit, run sequentially ~4 weeks each); a Journey (journey_plans + journey_plan_items) is a set of practices, official (nested under a Quest via quest_id) or member-built (open library), with progress derived from the practice log (ADR-144). Finishing a Journey pays +75 Zaps + a Pillar Trophy, no Gems (ADR-305), and advances the member's season rank. All free. (The legacy action-chain engine is retired and dropped, ADR-152.)
• Challenge / Expression Challenge: the Expression capstone that completes each Journey (a season_challenges row typed expression, linked to its Journey via journey_id). Required to finish the Journey. Pays +50 Zaps in person at a Circle, or +30 Gems posted solo online. The season-wide 15-challenge outreach engine is dormant (kept, not seeded).
• Trophy: the award minted when a member finishes a Journey. Advances the season rank. Pays no Gems: the escalating ladder (Initiate 25 / Adept 50 / Master 100) is RETIRED by ADR-305 and LIVE-185 removed the code still paying it. Stamped with the rank reached and stored in season_trophies.
• Pillars: Mind / Body / Spirit / Expression, the taxonomy Journeys are organised by (table pillars, migration 20260613000010; renamed 2026, see docs/NAMING.md). Three Pillars carry Journeys (Mind / Body / Spirit); Expression is woven in as the Challenge capstone on every Journey, not a fourth Journey. Pillars are never called Channels (Channels = the topical forum feature only).
• Per-practice intensity tiers: RETIRED (June 2026). The Initiate / Adept / Master practice-content tier system is removed: practice_tiers table + default_tier / tier_override / default_intensity_tier columns dropped (migration 20260628000000_retire_practice_intensity_tiers.sql). The words Initiate / Adept / Master are now season ranks only (completion-based) and no longer name a practice setting. Weight class (light / standard / heavy) is the only per-practice variant that remains.
• Two internal clocks: the rolling rhythm clock (cadence/streak) and the fixed quest clock (a season = 91 days = 13×7 buckets). Both are internal-only: the UI says "streak" and "season," never "rhythm/quest clock." A Journey completes when the member has logged its Practices on 14-16 distinct days inside its ~4-week window and completed its Expression Challenge. Derived from practice_logs, no progress table (lib/journey-arc.ts, ADR-197). Completion fires the Trophy + rank advance + Zap/Gem grants via reward_grants (ADR-200).
• Co-op: circle co-op completion: ≥3 active circle members on the same Journey (lib/journey-coop.ts, ADR-199; renamed 2026, see docs/NAMING.md). Distinct from Resonance: Resonance is the Connection-Layer tie strength (ADR-186), a separate concept.
• Circle Current: a circle's collective, non-competitive seasonal standing (replaces the prior term, renamed 2026, see docs/NAMING.md; internal column circles.season_current, ledger circle_current_transactions, migration 20260613000040). See EVENTS-SYSTEM.md.
• Frequency Signature: a member's four-Pillar practice balance, a derived profile identity (lib/frequency-signature.ts).
• Achievements / streaks: achievements, user_achievements, streaks, challenge_progress, season_challenges, season_trophies.

Moderation primitives

• Soft-hide: posts/dispatches get hidden_at / hidden_by (recoverable). Listing queries must add .is('hidden_at', null); admin views deliberately don't.
• Suspension: profiles.suspended_{at,until,reason,by}. A DB trigger blocks suspended members from posting.
• System profile: seeded row handle='moderation', is_system=true, auth_user_id=NULL, carrying the Executive-Admin staff axis (web_role='janitor'; the legacy community_role='janitor' rung is retained as a deprecated no-op). Used as the DM sender when warning a member. Excluded from the members admin list.