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Glossary

Terms used throughout platform docs and across AzureLocal repos.

MAPROOM

The offline, fixture-based testing framework for AzureLocal repos. Stands for "Map Room" — the place where you study terrain before going out to the field. MAPROOM tests run without a live cluster, in CI, against JSON fixtures that model real cluster state. Lives under testing/maproom/.

Contrast with TRAILHEAD.

TRAILHEAD

The live-cluster validation framework for AzureLocal repos. Stands for the place where you start a hike — you leave the map and actually walk the trail. TRAILHEAD cycles run a module or script against a real cluster, capture evidence, and compare to prior runs. Lives under testing/trailhead/.

Contrast with MAPROOM.

IIC / IIC canon

Infinite Improbability Corp — the canonical fictional company used in every AzureLocal test fixture, synthetic example, and code demo. Domain iic.local, cluster azlocal-iic-s2d-01, nodes azl-iic-n01 through azl-iic-n04. Never real customer names in committed test data.

"IIC canon" refers to the canonical JSON data files under testing/iic-canon/ that serve as the single source of truth for IIC identity data.

Fixture

A JSON file that models cluster state for MAPROOM tests. Fixtures live per-product under tests/maproom/Fixtures/*.json in each product repo. Must validate against testing/maproom/schema/fixture.schema.json.

A small pointer file in a product repo that links back to platform. Every AzureLocal repo carries three breadcrumbs:

  1. README badge — visible at the top of the repo's README
  2. STANDARDS.md — a ~6-line stub at repo root linking to platform/standards
  3. .azurelocal-platform.yml — machine-readable metadata declaring the repo's type and adopted platform features

See reference/file-manifest.md.

Drift / drift audit

Drift is when a product repo diverges from the canonical standards or templates — a stale CONTRIBUTING.md, a reusable workflow pinned to @main, a missing STANDARDS.md stub. The drift audit is the monthly scheduled workflow (drift-audit.yml) that checks every repo and files an issue when drift is detected.

See repo-management/drift-audit.md.

Reusable workflow

A GitHub Actions workflow that other workflows call via uses:. Consumers pin by major version tag (@v1). Lives either in AzureLocal/.github/.github/workflows/ (governance) or AzureLocal/platform/.github/workflows/ (stack-specific).

See reusable-workflows/split-rule.md.

Template variant

One of the five repo-type skeletons used to bootstrap new repos: ps-module, ts-web-app, iac-solution, migration-runbook, training-site. Cap is five for v1 — a sixth triggers an ADR.

See scaffolds/overview.md.

ADR

Architecture Decision Record. A numbered, immutable document capturing a cross-cutting decision (rationale, consequences, alternatives). Stored in decisions/. Required for standards changes, new reusable workflows, IIC canon edits, and new template variants.

See governance/adr-process.md.

Canonical

An adjective that means "the one source of truth — all other copies must defer to this". Canonical standards live in platform/standards/. Canonical IIC data lives in platform/testing/iic-canon/. Canonical labels live in platform/repo-management/org-scripts/labels.json. Etc.

Consumer / consumer repo

Any AzureLocal repo that references platform via a reusable workflow, a STANDARDS.md stub, or an AzureLocal.Common module import. Every AzureLocal repo except platform and .github is a consumer.

Dual-support window

When a reusable workflow releases a breaking change (@v2), the prior major (@v1) is maintained for six months so consumer repos can migrate on their own cadence. Documented per workflow in governance/breaking-changes.md.

Platform version

The platformVersion field in .azurelocal-platform.yml. Declares which major version of platform contracts a repo adopts. Monotonic integer (starts at 1). Bumps when breaking changes land across the reusable-workflow surface.

@v1

The git tag convention for major versions of reusable workflows. Consumers reference workflows like uses: AzureLocal/platform/.github/workflows/reusable-ps-module-ci.yml@v1. Pinning to @main fails the drift audit.