Glossary
This page is the single source of truth for what we call things in msg.ZenTestAI. Several concepts have grown more than one name over time — the same entity shows up as one word in the UI, a different word in older screens, and a third in the API or code. That drift confuses users and the AI assistant (which reads the API names).
Each entry below names the canonical term (use this everywhere — UI labels, docs, support, MCP tool descriptions), the synonyms you may still encounter, and the internal / API name so engineers can map the two. When a term is dangerously overloaded, the entry calls out what not to confuse it with.
When you add a screen, a doc page, an API field, or an MCP tool, use the canonical term. If you find an old synonym in the product, prefer fixing it over copying it.
The frontend enforces this glossary automatically: msg-zen-test-ai-frontend/docs/Glossary.md
is derived from this page, and guard specs fail the frontend build when a forbidden
synonym appears in a UI string.
Core entities
| Canonical term | What it is | Synonyms you may see | Internal / API name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Test Case | One natural-language test: header fields, an ordered list of steps, parameters and variants. | "test", "test definition" | TestDefinition |
| Step | A single natural-language instruction inside a test case. | — | TestStep |
| Activity | A named, contiguous group of steps inside one test case, optionally carrying loop / condition / disabled metadata. | — | activity (TestStep.activityId) |
| Execution Plan | A runnable bundle that organizes test cases into groups, controls their run order, and passes parameter values between them. Can be scheduled or triggered from CI/CD. | "test set", "test plan" | TestSet |
| Group | An execution group inside an execution plan — the unit that controls parallel/sequential order. | — | TestSetGroup |
| Folder | The hierarchy that organizes the list pages (Test-Cases, Snippets, Macros, Execution-Plans). Unrelated to an execution plan's groups. | — | TestGroup (the groupId field) |
| Snippet | A reusable sequence of steps referenced from other test cases. | — | TestDefinition (type SNIPPET) |
| Macro | A small reusable function (e.g. date arithmetic) usable inside steps. | — | macro |
| Script | A JavaScript function defined in the tenant and referenced from a step's Scripts setting, used for custom data generation or assertions. | "script function" | TestScriptDefinition |
| Tag | A free-form label attached to a test case, used for filtering lists and for driving tag-driven Groups (see above) inside an execution plan. | "label" | Tag |
| Execution | One actual run of a test case or execution plan, with its results, screenshots and logs. | "run" | TestExecution |
Parameters & variants
| Canonical term | What it is | Synonyms you may see | Internal / API name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parameter | A named placeholder ([[name]]) in step text, URL, etc. whose value is supplied at run time. | — | parameter |
| Variant | One concrete set of parameter values a test case can run with (plus optional per-run overrides). | "parameter combination", "combination" | ParameterCombination (combinationId) |
"Variant" is the canonical word; combinationId survives as the API field name
for the same thing. When you read combinationId, think variant.
People, agents & AI — the big overload
The word "agent" is the most overloaded term in the product. It means two completely different things, and they must never be conflated.
| Canonical term | What it is | Synonyms you may see | Internal / API name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Test User | The browser profile / identity a test runs as: auth mode, viewport, language, timezone, entitlements, credentials. | "user", "agent" (legacy), "browser role" | Agent (the agentId field) |
| AI Agent | One of the AI roles that drives a test: Step-Agent, Login-Agent, XPath-Agent, Assertions-Agent, the Agentic AI, the Correction Agent. | — | (prompt roles in the runner) |
| AI Assistant | The in-app chat that creates, fixes and reasons about a test over a persistent, resumable session. | — | agent session |
A Test User is who the test logs in as. An AI Agent is the AI that decides
what to click. They are unrelated. The entity behind "Test User" is still named
Agent in the code and the API (agentId), which is the historical source of the
confusion — surface it to humans as Test User everywhere, and reserve the bare
word "agent" for the AI roles.
Tenancy & configuration
| Canonical term | What it is | Synonyms you may see | Internal / API name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tenant | An isolated tenant: its own tests, users, applications, settings and data. | "product" (it appears as Product in the API) | Product |
| Application | A configured target system: base host/path, login behaviour, proxy, AI hints, iframe handling, etc. | "host", "enhanced application settings", "ProductHost" | ProductHost |
| Application Map | A visual graph of an application's screens (surfaces) and the flows between them, produced by an AI scan. | "app map" | AppMap |
| Surface | One node in an Application Map — a page, step in a flow, or a modal that the scanning agent reached. | — | AppMapNode |
Product is the internal / API name for Tenant; the /tenant/... URL segment
matches the canonical term. ProductHost is an internal schema name for
Application — do not expose either internal name to users.
Quality signals
| Canonical term | What it is | Synonyms you may see | Internal / API name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flakiness | How often a test flips between passed and failed on the same, unchanged definition (intermittency), measured as a flip-rate (0–1) over its recent verdicts and shown as Stable / Flaky / Very flaky. It measures trustworthiness, not pass/fail health. | "flaky test", "intermittent test", "unstable test" | FlakinessDto (flip-rate) |
Always spell it flakiness (one word). A Stable verdict means consistent, not healthy: a test that fails every single time also scores 0 flakiness (it never flips). The stability strip flags that case separately, so "Stable" is never mistaken for "passing".
Quick "use this, not that"
| Use this | Not this |
|---|---|
| Flakiness | flaky test · intermittent test · flakyness (misspelling) |
| Test Case | test definition |
| Execution Plan | test set · test plan |
| Variant | combination · parameter combination |
| Test User | agent (when you mean the login identity) |
| AI Agent | agent (only the AI roles are "agents") |
| Application | host · ProductHost · application settings |
| Application Map | app map · Anwendungskarte (DE) · Anwendungs-Map (DE) |
| Script | script function |
| Tenant | product · Produkt (DE) |
| Folder | group (folders organize lists; groups live inside an execution plan) |