Core concepts
The shared vocabulary used across Ethen — apps, connections, approvals, evidence, and lifecycles.
A small vocabulary shows up throughout the docs and the apps. Learn it once here.
App
An app is a separately deployed product with its own URL and release train: Chat (chat.upcube.ai), Studio (studio.upcube.ai), and this site (upcube.ai, which also serves Model Intelligence). Connected Apps is the user-facing surface of Flow, served through Chat settings and the Platform control plane.
Connection
A connection links your Ethen identity to one account on an external app (for example, one Gmail mailbox). Connections carry their own lifecycle: active, needs-reauth, revoked, and more. See Managing connections.
Scope
A scope is one permission a connection grants (for example, read-only mail access). Ethen requests the smallest scope set that satisfies the task, and shows every grant before it runs. Grants you did not approve never run.
Approval
Sensitive actions pause for an approval step: a human confirms the exact action, on the exact account, before anything with real-world effect runs. Approvals expire, and a changed action needs a fresh approval — never a reuse of the old one.
Evidence
Runs produce an evidence trail — what ran, on which account, under which approval, with what outcome — so you can audit and reproduce results. "It worked" is never the whole story; the trail is.
Lifecycle
Every product carries a truthful lifecycle: live, private alpha, beta, preview, or coming. Planned features are labeled planned or roadmap. No mock, fixture, or catalog listing ever establishes that something is live, connected, or certified.