Software Development Glossary
This glossary defines the software development terms that come up most often in client projects — from MVP and headless commerce to Core Web Vitals and technical debt. Each definition is written in plain English, without jargon, so it makes sense before the project starts.
20 terms, A to Z
API (Application Programming Interface)
An API is a defined way for one piece of software to request data or actions from another. It is how a storefront asks a payment provider to charge a card, or how a mobile app reads from the same database the website uses.
More on custom web developmentCI/CD
CI/CD is the practice of automatically testing every code change (continuous integration) and automatically releasing the ones that pass (continuous delivery). It replaces manual release days with small, frequent, reversible deployments.
More on custom web developmentCore Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are three Google metrics for real-world page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Google measures them from actual visits, not lab tests, and uses them as a ranking signal.
More on web performanceHeadless commerce
Headless commerce is an architecture where the storefront a customer sees is built separately from the commerce engine that handles products, carts and orders, with the two connected by an API. It lets the storefront be redesigned or rebuilt without touching the commerce logic.
More on e-commerce developmentIncremental static regeneration (ISR)
Incremental static regeneration serves a pre-built static page but rebuilds it in the background on a set interval, so content stays current without a full redeploy. It combines static speed with the freshness of a dynamic page.
More on custom web developmentMonthly retainer
A monthly retainer is an engagement that reserves an agreed amount of development capacity each month for a fixed fee, rather than quoting each piece of work separately. It suits products that need continuous iteration instead of one delivery.
More on hiring and engagement modelsMulti-tenancy
Multi-tenancy is a design where a single running application serves many customer organisations at once, keeping each one's data isolated from the others. It is what makes SaaS economical to operate, because one deployment serves every account.
More on saas and dashboardsMVP (Minimum Viable Product)
An MVP is the smallest version of a product that still delivers its core value, built to test an idea with real users before investing in the full build. It ships with one problem solved properly rather than ten solved partially.
More on mvp developmentProgressive web app (PWA)
A progressive web app is a website that behaves like an installed app: it can be added to a home screen, works offline, and sends push notifications. It is distributed by URL rather than through an app store.
More on mobile app developmentRAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
Retrieval-augmented generation is a technique where an application searches its own documents for relevant passages and passes them to a language model as context before it answers. It grounds answers in the organisation's real data instead of the model's training.
More on ai and automationReact Native
React Native is a framework for building iOS and Android apps from one React codebase that renders genuinely native interface components. It lets one team ship both platforms without maintaining two separate codebases.
More on mobile app developmentSaaS (Software as a Service)
SaaS is software delivered over the internet on a subscription, where the provider hosts and maintains one shared application for all customers. Users access it through a browser instead of installing it, and updates reach everyone at once.
More on saas and dashboardsSchema markup (structured data)
Schema markup is machine-readable code added to a page that states what its content means — that a string is a price, a review score or an event date. Search engines and AI assistants use it to understand and cite the page accurately.
More on custom web developmentScope creep
Scope creep is the gradual expansion of a project's requirements after the work has been estimated, without a matching change to budget or deadline. It is the most common reason fixed-price software projects run late.
More on hiring and engagement modelsServer-side rendering (SSR)
Server-side rendering is when a page's HTML is generated on the server for each request and sent to the browser ready to display. It makes the first paint faster and gives crawlers complete content without running JavaScript.
More on custom web developmentServerless
Serverless is a cloud model where code runs in short-lived instances the provider starts and stops on demand, and billing follows actual execution rather than reserved capacity. Servers still exist; the team simply does not provision or manage them.
More on custom web developmentStaff augmentation
Staff augmentation is an engagement where external developers join an existing in-house team and work under its own management and process. It adds capacity without the time and overhead of permanent hiring.
More on hiring and engagement modelsStatic site generation (SSG)
Static site generation builds a page's HTML once at deploy time and serves that same file to every visitor from a CDN. It is the fastest way to serve a page that does not change per user.
More on custom web developmentStrangler pattern
The strangler pattern is a way to replace a legacy system gradually, routing one feature at a time to a new application while the old one keeps running. The legacy system shrinks until nothing routes to it and it can be switched off, avoiding a risky big-bang rewrite.
More on custom web developmentTechnical debt
Technical debt is the future cost created by choosing a quicker implementation now over a sounder one. Like financial debt it accrues interest: every later change to that area takes longer than it should until the shortcut is repaid.
More on custom web development