Glossary

Plain-language definitions of every term used in this documentation. Written for both technical and non-technical readers.

A

Ably The realtime messaging service used to push live updates to browsers — for example, when a booking status changes from "Pending" to "Confirmed", the customer's screen updates instantly without refreshing.

acquisition_source Where a customer first came from when they signed up. Values: organic (found the website themselves), gmb (clicked from Google Maps), walkin (scanned the in-store QR code), meta_ad (came from a Meta/Instagram advertisement).

Admin Portal The staff-facing app at admin.theroyalglow.in — a separate Next.js app (@rgss/admin) served at root paths (no /admin prefix; the subdomain is the namespace). Only accessible to staff with the right role. Used for managing bookings, customers, billing, memberships, and more.

AppError A custom error class in packages/errors/ that carries a machine-readable code, a human-readable message, and an HTTP status code. Used throughout the codebase to represent expected business errors.

App Router The modern Next.js routing system (introduced in Next.js 13) that uses the app/ directory. Royal Glow uses Next.js 16 with App Router.

B

Better Auth The authentication library used for sign-in. Handles Google OAuth, session management, and role-based access control (RBAC).

Biome The linting and formatting tool used instead of ESLint + Prettier. Written in Rust — about 100x faster than ESLint.

Booking Dialog The 4-step modal that opens over the homepage when a customer clicks "Book Now". It is never a separate page — always a modal overlay.

Booking Number A human-readable identifier for each booking. Format: BK-{branch_code}-{YYMM}-{H|S}-{5_random}. Example: BK-RS-2605-H-38291. H = salon (hair/beauty), S = spa.

Branch A physical salon location. Currently one branch: Rayasandra (code: RS). All bookings, invoices, and staff are scoped to a branch.

Bun The JavaScript runtime and package manager used instead of Node.js + npm/yarn. Faster installs, faster test runs, native TypeScript support.

C

CAPI (Conversions API) Meta's server-side event tracking API. Sends purchase and lead events from the Next.js server directly to Meta — more reliable than browser-side tracking because it's unaffected by ad blockers or iOS privacy restrictions.

Cloudflare KV A key-value store at Cloudflare's edge. Used to cache the service catalog so it loads in milliseconds globally without hitting the database.

Cloudflare Workers The hosting platform for both Next.js apps (customer site rgss-web and admin portal rgss-admin). They deploy to Cloudflare Workers via the OpenNext adapter (@opennextjs/cloudflare) — not Cloudflare Pages — and run at Cloudflare's global edge network. Deploy with wrangler deploy / opennextjs-cloudflare deploy.

Cloudflare R2 Cloudflare's file storage service (S3-compatible). Used for service images, gallery photos, PDF invoices, and database backups. Zero egress fees.

CMS (Content Management System) The Payload CMS v3 instance at cms.theroyalglow.in. Used only for marketing content: blog posts, gallery, team bios, homepage banners, and FAQ. The service catalog, bookings, and billing are managed in the custom admin portal (admin.theroyalglow.in) — not in the CMS.

Conventional Commits A commit message format: feat:, fix:, chore:, docs:, refactor:, etc. Used for clean git history and automatic changelog generation.

D

DPDP Act India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023. Governs how personal data of Indian citizens must be collected, stored, and used. Royal Glow complies by collecting only necessary data, providing a Privacy Policy, and gating analytics behind cookie consent.

Drizzle ORM The database query library used to interact with PostgreSQL. Pure TypeScript — no binary dependencies, works on Cloudflare Workers.

E

Edge Cloudflare's global network of servers. When a customer visits the website, their request is handled by the nearest Cloudflare server (one of 200+ worldwide) rather than a single server in one location. This makes the site fast globally.

E-E-A-T Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — Google's framework for evaluating content quality. Relevant for SEO and AI search visibility.

F

Feature Flag A switch that enables or disables a feature without deploying new code. Used via PostHog to gradually roll out new features or A/B test offers.

Financial Year India's financial year runs April–March. Used in invoice numbers: INV-1-2627-92921 means branch 1, financial year 2026–27.

Fumadocs The documentation framework used for this docs site. Built on Next.js — TypeScript-native, fast, and premium out of the box.

G

Gems The loyalty currency. Customers earn 1 gem per ₹100 spent on services (floor, not rounded). Gems expire after 365 days. Redeemable against specific catalogue services — not a general ₹ discount.

GMB (Google My Business) The Google business listing for Royal Glow. Customers find the salon on Google Maps and can click through to book. The booking link uses ?utm_source=gmb for attribution.

GST Goods and Services Tax — India's indirect tax. Royal Glow charges 18% GST (SAC code 999721) on all services. All prices are GST-inclusive. Back-calculation: base = price ÷ 1.18.

H

Heartbeat A ping sent to BetterStack when a scheduled job completes successfully. If BetterStack doesn't receive the ping within the expected window, it fires an alert. Used to monitor all 19 background jobs.

I

Invoice Number Format: INV-{branch_number}-{financial_year}-{5_digit_random}. Example: INV-1-2627-92921.

IST (Indian Standard Time) UTC+5:30. All timestamps are stored in UTC in the database and displayed in IST to users.

J

JSON-LD A format for embedding structured data in web pages. Used for LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, and other schema.org types. Helps Google understand the page content and show rich results.

L

Lead A potential customer who submitted the /book form from a Meta/Instagram ad. Leads are tracked in the CRM pipeline: New → Contacted → Follow-up → Booked → Won/Lost.

Lighthouse Google's tool for measuring web page quality. Royal Glow requires: Performance ≥ 95, Accessibility = 100, Best Practices = 100, SEO = 100. These are enforced as CI gates.

llms.txt A plain-text file at the site root that helps AI systems (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude) understand the site quickly. The "robots.txt for AI models".

M

Membership A SPA membership that gives a customer a block of hours to use across SPA services. Three tiers: Silver (8 hrs/₹10k), Gold (15 hrs/₹15k), Platinum (custom). Valid for 90 days.

Membership Session When a SPA member uses their membership hours for a service. Recorded as a completed booking with ₹0 invoice. Hours are deducted from the membership balance.

Monorepo A single Git repository containing multiple apps and packages. Royal Glow's monorepo contains five workspaces — apps/web (customer site), apps/admin (admin portal), apps/cms (Payload CMS), apps/invoicing (Cloud Run PDF service), and docs (this Fumadocs site) — plus shared packages/.

MSW (Mock Service Worker) A library for mocking API calls in tests. Works at the network level — tests don't know they're hitting a mock.

N

NAP Name, Address, Phone — the three pieces of contact information that must be identical across all platforms (website, Google My Business, social media, directories) for local SEO.

Neon The PostgreSQL database provider. Serverless, auto-scaling, with Git-like branching. Royal Glow uses one Neon project with four branches: prod, pprd, test, dev.

No-Show When a customer doesn't arrive for a confirmed booking. After 4 no-shows within 90 days, future bookings require manager approval. Walk-in no-shows don't count.

O

Onboarding The first-time setup flow after a new customer signs in with Google. Collects: phone number, date of birth, gender, and consent preferences. Redirects to /onboarding automatically.

P

Paise The smallest unit of Indian currency (₹1 = 100 paise). All money in the database is stored as integers in paise to avoid floating-point errors. ₹1,000 = 100000 paise.

Payload CMS The content management system for marketing content. A Next.js plugin — self-hosted on Render, stores data in Neon, media in Cloudflare R2.

QStash scheduled jobs All 14 scheduled background jobs (nightly sales summaries, membership/offer/gems expiry, session cleanup, GST summary, appointment reminders, etc.) run as QStash HTTP POST jobs that wake the Neon compute and execute their SQL. pg_cron was retired because the free-tier compute sleeps and would silently skip late-night runs.

PostHog The product analytics platform. Tracks user behaviour, booking funnels, feature flags, and session replays. 1 million events/month free.

PWA (Progressive Web App) A web app that can be installed on a phone like a native app. Royal Glow's PWA supports offline viewing of the service menu and booking history.

Q

QStash Upstash's message queue service. Used to schedule and trigger background jobs: appointment reminders, birthday emails, lead follow-ups, sales reports, and more.

R

RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) The permission system. Six roles in hierarchy: Customer < Staff < Receptionist < Manager < Owner < Developer. Each role can only access routes and actions appropriate to their level.

Render The cloud hosting platform for the Payload CMS (cms.theroyalglow.in). Free tier, Singapore region (closest to India).

requestId A unique identifier (req_abc123xyz) attached to every API request. Appears in error responses, Sentry events, and log lines — making it easy to trace a specific request across all systems.

S

SAC Code Service Accounting Code — India's GST classification for services. Royal Glow uses SAC 999721 (Beauty treatment services).

Sentry The error monitoring platform. Captures unhandled exceptions with full stack traces, user context, and request details. 5,000 errors/month free.

Server Component A React component that renders on the server and sends HTML to the browser. No JavaScript is sent for the component itself. The default in Next.js App Router.

shadcn/ui A component library where components are copy-pasted into your codebase (not installed as a dependency). Built on Radix UI primitives for accessibility.

Snapshot A frozen copy of a value at a point in time. booking_service.price_at_booking_paise and invoice_item.unit_price_paise are snapshots — they preserve the price at the time of booking/invoicing, even if the service price changes later.

T

Tailwind CSS v4 The utility-first CSS framework used for styling. v4 uses native CSS cascade layers and design tokens.

Turborepo The monorepo task orchestration tool. Runs build, dev, lint, test in parallel across apps with incremental caching.

U

Upstash The serverless Redis and queue provider. Used for rate limiting (Redis) and background job scheduling (QStash).

UTM Parameters URL parameters that track where traffic comes from. Example: ?utm_source=gmb&utm_campaign=spring-offers. Persisted through the OAuth redirect via sessionStorage.

V

VAPID Keys Voluntary Application Server Identification keys — used to authenticate Web Push notifications. Generated once with bunx web-push generate-vapid-keys. Never change unless you intentionally rotate (which invalidates all existing push subscriptions).

W

Walk-in A customer who arrives at the salon without a prior booking. Walk-in bookings are created by the receptionist and skip the "Pending" status — they go directly to "Confirmed".

withErrorHandler A wrapper function that wraps API route handlers to catch errors and return standardised JSON error responses. All API routes use this wrapper.

Z

Zod The TypeScript schema validation library. Used to validate all API inputs at the system boundary. .safeParse() is used everywhere — never .parse() which throws unstructured errors.

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