Glossary
Short definitions of the terms you’ll meet reading these docs. Entries that have a deeper topic page name it at the end.
instance
One running copy of Chinaski serving one site: its own systemd service, its own SQLite database file, its own settings. Several instances (per client, per stage) can share one server via the instance-unit pattern (see Quickstart and The Database).
CMS
The private admin application where you author content. It stores everything in SQLite and, in production, binds only to a loopback address, so visitors never reach it.
builder
The separate process that turns your content database into the static site: it reads the database, renders your templates, and writes plain HTML to disk. Builds are explicit: dashboard, webhook, API, or command line, never automatic side effects.
staging and live
Every build is written into a staging directory next to the output, then swapped into the live output only when the build is complete and passes its safety checks. A failed build leaves the previous site serving untouched.
block
A reusable chunk of structured content embedded in any page or post with {{block:name}}. Simple types take flat fields; structured types store repeating rows as JSON with a row editor. See Blocks.
stack
A sequence of blocks treated as one unit: duplicatable, exportable, with revision history and diffs. Built for big sections that repeat across pages.
snippet
Raw HTML/JavaScript/CSS injected into the <head> or <body> of built pages, for analytics tags, verification tokens, custom styles. Snippets can be global (every page) or assigned to individual pages and posts. See Snippets.
slot
A named menu location in a theme (for example header or footer), discovered from workspace markers your templates declare, then offered in the Navigation admin. See Navigation and the Themes reference.
theme
The template set that renders your site: one active theme per instance. Themes provide page, post, and listing templates, and expose block types and site settings as template variables (see the built-in Themes doc).
media
Uploaded images and files with their metadata (alt text, captions, dimensions). The media folder is synced into each language’s output tree at build time.
air-gap mode
The no-outbound-network deployment state. Enabling it shows a banner in the sidebar and changes behavior where connections matter: external snippet code is stripped, remote backup restores are disabled, and integrations that phone out are unavailable. Offline installation is also supported via a bundled installer.
render cache and dirty set
How builds stay fast: unchanged content is recognized and skipped (no re-render), while edited items, scheduled transitions since the last build, and pages depending on changed blocks or stacks get rebuilt.
build fingerprint
A hash of the build-affecting configuration and theme templates. When anything global changes (a setting, the theme), the fingerprint mismatches and the next build drops to a full rebuild so nothing is missed.
promotion guard and blocked builds
The “always online” check between a finished build and publish: a build that would drop a large share of pages or spike broken links is blocked, and the previous site keeps serving. An explicit “Promote anyway” lets you bypass it for one build (see Build Failures).
redirect pattern
A redirect whose old slug ends in *, matching every path under that prefix, with $1 substituting the matched suffix into the destination. Pattern redirects are served as redirect pages rather than server-config rules.
instance secret (CHINASKI_SECRET)
The 32+ byte random key required at startup: it signs session cookies and encrypts stored credentials. It is excluded from settings exports, never leaving your server.
placeholder account and /setup
Fresh installs start with a placeholder admin password. Every admin request redirects to /setup until a real password is set, after which the setup page disappears (404). Resetting an admin password re-arms that same flow.
manager
The Chinaski Manager (github.com/bigjohncobb/chinaski-manager): a separate, shipped control panel for provisioning and running many CMS instances on one server: tenants, instance lifecycle (build/deploy/rollback/start/stop), domain attachment with automatic web-server regeneration, per-instance and control-plane backups, and health checks. Its “tenants” group instances at the manager level; it does not put several sites into one database (see Instances).