Grid Glossary

This glossary defines Hyperledger Grid terms and concepts.

agent

Person or entity that acts on behalf of a Pike organization to create and manage items such as Product or Location records. Pike roles (also called "permissions") control what an agent is allowed to do, such as creating schemas or product records.

batch

Collection of related transactions that are handled as a group by the backend distributed ledger. (For more information, see the Sawtooth glossary.) The Grid REST API provides the batches endpoint to submit batches of transactions and the batch_statuses endpoint to query the commit status of submitted batches. In addition, the grid CLI includes subcommands that can submit batches of transactions from the command line.

circuit

(Grid on Splinter) Virtual network that safely and securely enforces privacy scope boundaries. A circuit defines the scope and visibility domains for two or more connected nodes.

distributed ledger

Distributed database that records transactions, in chronological order, shared by all participants in a network. (Also called a "blockchain".) Each block is linked by a cryptographic hash to the previous block.

Grid daemon (gridd)

Daemon process that provides services such as the Grid REST API and state delta export functionality, which integrates with the backend distributed ledger to materialize state data to a local database.

Grid Product

Smart contract for defining and sharing product data (trade item data).

Grid Track and Trace

Smart contract for tracking goods as they move through a supply chain.

GS1

Organization that manages standards for business communication, such as GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) and GLN (Global Location Number). Grid includes support for GS1 standards in Grid Product, Grid Location, and other features.

Hyperledger Sawtooth

Backend distributed ledger system for executing transactions that provides a permissioned (private) network with dynamic consensus. For more information, see the Sawtooth documentation.

namespace

Set of addresses in shared state that specifies the storage location used by a specific smart contract for transaction information. For example, the first 6 hex characters of a state address identify Grid itself (612dee); the next two characters specify the Grid smart contract (such as 01 for Schema or 02 for Grid Product).

node

Device or process running Grid software, with a backend distributed ledger system, in order to participate in a network or Splinter circuit. Each node stores a complete replica of the distributed ledger.

organization

Company or other entity that owns trade items being managed with Grid smart contracts. As defined by the Pike smart contract, an organization has one or more agents with permission to manage items on behalf of that organization.

Pike

Smart contract that handles identity permissions with organizations and agents.

product

Trade item that is managed by the Grid Product smart contract. Each product has a namespace type (such as GS1), ID (such as a GTIN), an owning organization, and a set of properties that conforms to the product schema.

Sawtooth Sabre

Smart-contract engine that executes smart contracts with WebAssembly (WASM). The rules for a smart contract are defined by a smart contract specification (formerly called a "transaction family"). For more information, see the Sabre documentation.

Schema

Smart contract that defines and manages sets of properties, called "schemas", for Grid features such as Product and Location.

smart contract

Application-specific business logic that defines a set of operations or transaction types that are allowed on the distributed ledger. A smart contract implements a data model and transaction language for an application.

Splinter

Backend distributed ledger system for executing transactions that provides private circuits between participating nodes, where state data is shared only with circuit participants (called "member nodes"). For more information, see the Splinter documentation.

state delta export

Mechanism in the backend distributed ledger system that provides changes to shared state as "state deltas" (state-change updates as a result of processed transactions). The Grid daemon, gridd, provides an interface service for state delta export functionality, which allows Grid applications to subscribe to these changes for current information that can be stored in a local database.

transaction family

Earlier term for a smart contract.