Glossary

Artifact: A typed result or dependency, such as an image, measurement, object label, relationship, table, or spatial graph. Image artifacts can also carry the main flow between steps.
Artifact contract: A callable or module declaration describing named artifact inputs and outputs. The compiler uses it to build producer/consumer dependencies.
Callable contract: The compiler-visible metadata for a processing callable: memory types, locality, required components, runtime-bound parameters, artifacts, adapters, and execution scope.
Channel: A wavelength or contrast channel, often associated with a fluorophore, stain, or transmitted-light acquisition.
Compilation session: The cross-step authority for source, artifact, and plan state while a pipeline is compiled.
Compiled execution bundle: The validated worker-safe steps, frozen processing contexts, and environment decisions consumed by plate execution.
Compiled step plan: The typed compiler-owned plan for one step on one execution axis. Runtime code reads it but does not repeat its inference.
Execution axis: The component that partitions independent processing contexts, normally well.
Function pattern: A callable, a callable plus keyword arguments, a chain, or a dictionary that routes compiled group keys to callables.
Group by: A processing declaration that partitions already assembled arrays. It controls fan-out only when a dictionary function pattern is used.
Main flow: The primary image/result stream passed from one pipeline step to the next. It can have a named artifact identity or a compiler-owned implicit identity.
Materialization: Persisting a declared result to a storage backend or streaming backend. Intermediate runtime flow does not imply persistent materialization.
Measurement: A typed quantitative result associated with images, objects, relationships, wells, or a plate.
Microscope handler: A registered source-format declaration that owns detection, parsing, metadata projection, virtual-workspace behavior, and compatible backends.
Module artifact contract: The artifact semantics declared by a module family, including a lowered CellProfiler module.
Nominal registry: A registry rooted at an owning base declaration. Generic consumers query the root registry instead of maintaining copied name tables.
ObjectState: The first-party system that owns editable object state, scope-aware lazy configuration resolution, snapshots, provenance, and time travel.
PipelineConfig: The inheritable configuration declaration paired with an ordered list of FunctionStep objects.
Processing contract: The semantic locality of a callable, such as plane-local PURE_2D or whole-stack PURE_3D. It is independent of array memory type.
Runtime adapter: A declared boundary that converts typed compiler/runtime values into the invocation shape expected by a callable.
Runtime value: A typed value used during execution, including images, labels, measurements, relationships, and other artifact payloads.
Site: A field of view or tile acquired within a well.
Source binding: A declaration that connects a callable’s semantic input to a source or artifact plan.
Source universe: The compiler’s typed set of source identities and coordinates available to satisfy a step.
Source workspace projection: The virtual source view exposed by a microscope handler and PolyStore to initialization and compilation.
Variable components: The declaration that says what each position on the transported third array axis means, such as site, channel, or Z.
Virtual workspace: A source/reference projection that gives disparate storage backends a common path-like organization without requiring local copies.
Well: A sample location on a plate, normally identified by a row and column such as A01.
Z-stack: Images acquired at multiple focal depths for the same otherwise fixed coordinate.