Glossary

Canonical API -- The QuorumKit public headers under include/quorumkit/. New code should target this surface.

Compatibility surface -- The braft public headers under include/braft/. They preserve source compatibility for existing integrations and forward into the QuorumKit implementation.

Deterministic core -- The Raft state machine at the center of the library. It processes inputs in a fixed order and does not call the clock, the network, or the disk directly. This makes it possible to test under simulated time and simulated faults.

Runtime adapter -- Code that supplies the services the core cannot provide for itself: real clocks, thread scheduling, random number generation, and so on.

Transport adapter -- Code that moves Raft protocol messages between nodes. The core produces and consumes messages; the transport adapter decides whether they travel over brpc, raw TCP, RDMA, or an in-memory channel (for tests).

Storage backend -- A concrete implementation of log storage, metadata storage, or snapshot storage. Examples: local segment files, RocksDB, SQLite, in-memory (for tests).