Glossary

Key terms used throughout the Pelagora documentation.

Core concepts

Pelagora

The open, decentralized peer-to-peer commerce network. Defines shared protocols, data models, and the networking layer.

Beacon

A running instance of the Pelagora software. Each user operates their own Beacon locally.

Ref

A reference to a physical item — the basic unit of inventory in Pelagora. Contains title, description, category, price, condition, traits, and media.

PIM Protocol

Personal Inventory Management Protocol — the shared type system that defines how data is structured across the network.

DHT

Distributed Hash Table — the decentralized peer discovery mechanism (Hyperswarm) that lets nodes find each other without a central server.

Network

Peer

Another node on the network that your node has discovered and connected to.

Hyperswarm

The DHT implementation used by Pelagora for peer discovery and direct encrypted connections.

Topic

A DHT topic that nodes join to find peers on the same network.

PeerMessage

The standard message format for communication between nodes over the DHT.

Trading

Offer

A proposal to buy or trade for a Ref. Includes an optional price and message.

Negotiation

A back-and-forth exchange of proposals between buyer and seller.

Want

A "wanted" listing describing something a user is looking for.

AI integration

MCP

Model Context Protocol — an open standard for connecting AI assistants to external tools and data sources.

MCP Server

The bridge between a Pelagora node and an AI assistant. Exposes node capabilities as tools.

Tool

An MCP capability that an AI assistant can invoke (e.g., create_item, search_network).

Extensions

Skill

A plugin that extends Pelagora with new capabilities — routes, DHT messages, MCP tools, and database tables.

Category Schema

A definition of structured attributes for a product type, aligned with Schema.org vocabulary.

Traits

Category-specific attributes stored on a Ref (e.g., brand, size, material).