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Glossary

Short meanings for the words these docs use in a narrower sense than everyday English.

Products and authoring

Term Meaning
AwakeKt The project. AwakeKt Engine is the runtime these docs describe; AwakeKt Studio is the desktop editor.
ECS Entity component system: a World of entities, the components attached to them, and the Systems that update them.
scene document A *.scene.json file (SceneDocument), loaded by SceneLoader and saved by AwakeKt Studio. See Scene document schema.
scene DSL Kotlin that builds ECS content: world.scene { entity("…") { … } } or app { scene("…") { … } }.
component id The name of a component inside a scene document, such as light or mesh_renderer. See Scene document components.
scene runtime The awake:scene:runtime module: SceneManager, scene sessions, the scene asset library, scheduling. Not the whole scene module family.
binding The two-way link between a component id and an ECS component (SceneComponentBinding). It attaches the component on load and exports it on save.
registry SceneComponentRegistry, the set of bindings a load uses. A component id loads only once its binding is registered.
prefab A reusable node tree (ScenePrefab) with a GUID. A node links to one with prefab_link.
extension record Data in a scene document's extensions array, owned by an extension and kept as written when that extension is absent.

Rendering

Term Meaning
render hardware interface (RHI) The backend-neutral boundary to the GPU. The type is GpuDevice. See Render hardware interface.
backend The layer that translates the render contract to one graphics API: Vulkan or WebGPU.
render contract engine:render:contract: the vocabulary a backend and its callers share. It names no scene content.
render passes engine:render:passes: shared features that turn scene input into ordered GPU work. No Vulkan or WebGPU types.
capability Something a backend can do, such as a depth pre-pass or an optional GpuCapability.
content What is drawn, such as a sky or fog. Content is never named inside a backend.
declaration Saying what an app renders with, independent of any GPU: RenderPlan, ScenePipeline, PipelineSpec.
resolution Turning a declaration into GPU objects on a real device. Each backend does its own.
render plan RenderPlan: the pipelines an app renders with, written once for every backend.
narrowing RenderPlan.narrowedTo(capabilities): dropping what a backend cannot run, and reporting each drop.
pipeline Compiled GPU state: shaders, vertex layout, blend, depth, cull. Described by a PipelineSpec, looked up by a PipelineKey.
shader set ShaderSet: one shader with a half for each backend.
vertex format VertexFormat: a mesh's vertex attribute layout, and the key that matches a mesh to a pipeline.
pass A span of GPU recording with one set of attachments, such as the scene pass or a depth pre-pass.
render feature RenderFeature: one unit of work inside a pass, run in order.
clip space The coordinates a projection matrix outputs. It differs between Vulkan and WebGPU, so GpuDevice.clipSpace reports it.
shadow cascade One slice of the view, from the camera out to the shadow distance, with its own part of the shadow map.

Physics

Term Meaning
collision shape A geometric description used for contacts and ray hits, passed when a body is created. Not a render mesh.
heightfield HeightFieldShape: a collision surface sampled on a square, row-major grid.
sensor A body that detects what passes through it instead of blocking it.
capability gap A shape or query one physics backend cannot run. It throws PhysicsCapabilityException rather than doing something else.

UI

Term Meaning
AwakeKt Compose The awake:compose:* UI runtime. Compose-shaped, but its own engine, not Jetpack Compose.
Compose Foundation awake:compose:foundation: Row, Column, Box, scrolling and layout modifiers.
shadcn components awake:ui:shadcn: themed component recipes built on Compose Foundation. Shadcn* is only the code prefix.
game UI Screen-space UI, drawn by awake:ui:canvas; stored in a scene as canvas_element components (awake:scene:canvas).
Dp Density-independent pixel: a size that looks the same at any screen density.
constraints The minimum and maximum size a parent offers a child during layout.
semantics The meaning of UI for tests and accessibility: ids, roles, labels, bounds. Not pixels.

Testing

Term Meaning
golden or baseline A saved expected image or value a test compares against. It shows output changed, not that it is correct.
headless Rendering without a window, for tests. See engine:render:testing.
docs sample test A test named …DocsSampleTest whose code regions are included in these docs, so every sample compiles and runs.

See also