Glossary

Key terms used throughout the Pelagora documentation.

Core concepts

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

Node : A running instance of the Pelagora software. Each user operates their own node locally.

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).