Insites in Plain Words

When you build with an AI assistant, it will use words you may not know. This page explains 30 of them in plain words. Each one has a link to a guide if you want to learn more.

Where Your Site Lives

Insites Console

The website where you manage your Insites account. You create instances and invite people there, at console.insites.io. See Console Overview.

Instance

One site or application on Insites. It has its own web address, its own data and its own code. See Creating an Instance.

Staging

An instance for building and testing. Its emails go only to the test recipients you choose, so real people get nothing by mistake. It cannot have your own domain. See Staging vs. Production.

Production

The live instance that real people use. It sends real emails and can have your own domain. Put work here only after you test it on staging.

Instance Admin

The admin screens inside each instance. You can see your data, forms and pages there without writing code.

What Your Site Is Made Of

Page

One file that answers one web address. For example, the page for /about shows your About page. See Pages.

Slug

The part of a page file that sets its web address. A page with the slug about answers at /about.

Layout

The frame around your pages. It holds the parts that repeat on every page, such as the header, the menu and the footer. See Layouts.

Partial

A small piece of a page kept in its own file, so you can use it in many places. A contact form or a card is often a partial.

Asset

A file the site sends as it is, such as an image, a font, a style sheet or a script. Assets are served from a fast network of servers called a CDN. See Using Static Assets on Pages.

Liquid

The language Insites pages are written in. It mixes normal web page code with small instructions, such as show this name or repeat this for each item.

GraphQL

The language your site uses to read and save data. Your AI writes it for you.

Data and Forms

Table

A place to store one kind of data, such as members or orders. You describe its fields in a schema file. In the Instance Admin a table is called a database. See Database Fields and Tables.

Record

One row in a table, such as one member or one message. In the Instance Admin a record is called an item.

Form

A set of fields that people fill in, such as a contact form. Insites can save what they send and email you about it. See Building a Contact Form.

Migration

This word has two meanings. In your code, a migration is a short script that runs once when you deploy, for example to add starting data. Moving a whole site to Insites is also called a migration. See Migrating to Insites.

People and Access

User

A person who can sign in to your site. Every contact in the Insites CRM is also a user.

Profile

Extra details stored about a user, such as a first name or a phone number. One user can have more than one profile. See Creating a User Profile.

Role

A label that decides what a person may do. There are two kinds. In the Console, your role (Viewer, Editor, Developer, Admin or Owner) decides what you can do on instances. On your own site, you can give users roles such as admin.

Policy

A rule that decides who may open a page or send a form, such as only signed-in people. Its full name is authorization policy. A page with no policy is open to everyone. See Adding an Authorization Policy.

Constant

A secret or setting stored on the instance, not in your code. Use one for API keys. CloudShell calls constants environment variables. Staging and production can hold different values.

Building and Shipping

Module

A packaged set of features. Insites modules, such as the CRM and forms, come with every instance. You can also put code you want to reuse in a module of your own. See Codebase Introduction.

Email Notification

An email template that your site sends, such as a welcome email or a sign-in code. See Creating an Email Notification.

Deploy

To send your code to an instance so it starts working there. Your AI deploys through CloudShell, or a push to GitHub deploys for you.

Logs

The record of what happened on your instance, including errors. Ask your AI to check the logs after every deploy. See Creating Application Logs.

Your AI Tools

CloudShell

The bridge between your AI assistant and your instance. It lets your AI deploy, upload files, read logs and set constants, using your own Insites sign-in. See About CloudShell.

MCP

Short for Model Context Protocol. It is the open standard that lets an AI assistant use outside tools. CloudShell is an MCP server, so any AI assistant that supports remote MCP servers can use it.

Logic Engine

A public set of rules and guides that teaches AI assistants how Insites works. Give it to your AI at the start of every project, so it does not guess. See Insites Logic Engine.

GitHub App

The Insites app on GitHub that links a GitHub repository to your instance. Every change is then saved with a history you can review and undo. On GitHub it is called Insites CloudShell. See Insites GitHub App.

Watched Branch

The one branch of your GitHub repository that your instance follows. Every change pushed to it deploys automatically. Changes on other branches do not deploy until you merge them into it. A new connection watches the branch called main.

Related

• Start Here: Build with AI
• Glossary
• What Insites Can Do
• Safety Rails for AI Builds
• What to Ask Your AI