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How to read this page. These are the same terms you will see throughout the docs. On most pages, the first time a term appears it is underlined and shows this definition when you hover over it, so you rarely need to leave the page you are on. This glossary is the full list, in alphabetical order, for when you want to look something up directly.

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A

ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) One of the major classification societies that publishes binding ship-design rules. Abstention When the AI declines to answer because it is not confident enough. In Forge this is treated as a good behavior. A high-quality system abstains often when the information it needs is missing, rather than guessing. Append-only Data that can be added to but never modified or deleted. Corrections happen by adding a new record that supersedes the old one, so the full history is always preserved. Audit signature A cryptographic proof (Forge uses a scheme called Ed25519) that a specific decision was made by a specific person at a specific time, and has not been altered since. Authority level The trust grade given to a source. Three values: authority (binding), evidence (precedent), and reference (informational only).

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C

Calibration Whether the AI’s stated confidence matches its actual accuracy. A well-calibrated system that says “90% confident” is right 90% of the time. Forge tracks this explicitly. Capability A named, versioned, rule-bound move the AI is allowed to make (for example, “retrieve prior similar designs” or “draft a rule applicability assessment”). Each one has a defined input, output, confidence threshold, and autonomy limit. The AI cannot invent new moves on the fly. CAD (Computer-Aided Design) The software shipyards use to author drawings and 3D models (ShipConstructor, AutoCAD, CADMATIC, Rhino, and others). CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Where USCG rules are written down in law. Cost-asymmetric verification Running the cheap checks first and the expensive checks last, so most outputs are caught early without spending effort on the costly reviews.

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D

Decision ledger The append-only record of every engineering decision and the reasoning behind it.

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E

Ed25519 A modern, fast, well-studied cryptographic signature scheme. What Forge uses for audit signatures. Evidence A source that supports a precedent argument but does not by itself authorize a design choice (for example, a prior vessel’s records).

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I

IACS (International Association of Classification Societies) The umbrella body for the classification societies, including ABS. Idempotent Safe to retry. An idempotent operation produces the same result whether it runs once or five times, so a network hiccup that causes a retry does not create duplicate decisions. IMO (International Maritime Organization) The UN body that publishes international maritime conventions.

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K

Knowledge graph Data stored as connected, typed objects (nodes and the relationships between them) rather than as rows in tables. Forge’s model of a vessel lives as a knowledge graph.

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M

Measurement result A record of a numeric geometry value computed by the geometry service. Any numeric geometry claim in Forge must point to one of these. Multi-tenancy One software system serving many customers (yards) with each yard’s data rigorously isolated from the others.

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O

Observe-only mode The starting posture for a new deployment. The AI drafts and proposes, but nothing it produces is treated as authoritative. Lasts about 90 days minimum. Ontology A structured model of what kinds of things exist in a domain and how they relate. For ships: “a Vessel has Hulls; a Hull has Compartments; a Compartment contains Systems,” and so on.

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P

Provenance Knowing where every piece of data came from and what was done to it along the way. Pydantic A Python tool for defining and checking the shape of data. Used inside Forge.

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R

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) Giving an AI the relevant documents to ground its answer, instead of letting it rely on memory. Reference A source that is informational only and never sufficient on its own to make a decision. Row-Level Security (RLS) A database feature that enforces who can see which rows at the database itself. How Forge keeps each yard’s data isolated even if the application has a bug. Rule supersession event What gets created when a new rule version replaces an old one, triggering a re-check of past decisions.

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S

SHACL A standard for validating knowledge-graph data. The graph-layer counterpart to Pydantic. Sensitivity class The four-tier classification (public / internal / confidential / restricted) that controls where a piece of data is allowed to be processed. Source Anything that comes into the system as input: rules, drawings, datasheets, prior vessel records. Sources are locked once ingested and carry their version and authority. STEP / IGES Standard file formats for exchanging CAD geometry. Supersession Replacing a prior decision or rule version with a new one while keeping the link back to what was replaced.

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T

Tenant One customer in a multi-tenant system. In Forge, typically one shipyard. Tenant ID The field on every record that says which yard owns it. Enforced at the database layer.

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U

USCG (United States Coast Guard) The US regulator for commercial vessels in US waters.

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V

Verification ladder The ordered sequence of checks that runs on every AI output before it can become an authoritative decision, ending in human sign-off when required.