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Glossary

A plain-language reference for the words used across these docs. If a term in a guide is unfamiliar, look it up here first. Definitions are deliberately informal — the deep-dive guides have the precise details.

If you've never built a web API before, read Web API basics top to bottom; it's a five-minute primer. Everything else is for looking things up as you go.

Web API basics — what an API is, in everyday terms
Rustango building blocks — the pieces you assemble
Data and the database
A few Rust words — so the code blocks aren't scary
Frameworks we compare to

Web API basics

API — Application Programming Interface. A way for one program to talk to another. A web API does it over the internet: your app sends a message, the server sends one back. Think of it as a waiter — you order from a menu, the kitchen sends food back.

REST API — the most common style of web API. "REST" is just a set of conventions: you act on resources (like "posts" or "users") using standard web verbs. You don't need to know the theory — in practice it means predictable URLs and a handful of verbs, described next.

Endpoint — one specific URL your API answers, like /api/posts (all posts) or /api/posts/42 (the post with id 42). An API is a collection of endpoints.

HTTP verb (or method) — what you want to do at an endpoint. There are five you'll see constantly:

Verb	Means	Example
`GET`	read / fetch	"give me all posts"
`POST`	create	"add a new post"
`PUT`	replace	"overwrite post 42 entirely"
`PATCH`	partially update	"just change post 42's title"
`DELETE`	remove	"delete post 42"

Request / Response — a request is the message you send (a verb + an endpoint

optionally a body of data). The response is what comes back (a status code + usually a body of data).

JSON — the text format APIs use to carry data. It looks like {"title": "Hello", "published": true} — labelled values, human-readable. Both requests and responses are usually JSON.

Status code — a three-digit number in every response saying how it went:

Code	Meaning
`200`	OK — here's your data
`201`	Created — your new thing was saved
`204`	Done — nothing to send back (e.g. after a delete)
`400`	Bad request — you sent something invalid (the body says what)
`401` / `403`	Not logged in / not allowed
`404`	Not found
`429`	Too many requests — slow down
`500`	The server hit an error

CRUD — Create, Read, Update, Delete. The four basic things you do to data. A "CRUD API" just means an API that lets you do all four. See ViewSets, which build a full CRUD API from one declaration.

Query string / query parameter — the ?key=value part on the end of a URL, used to filter, search, sort, or page through results — e.g. /api/posts?status=published&page=2. Each key=value is one parameter.

Pagination — splitting a long list of results into pages so a response isn't huge. The envelope is the wrapper around the page that also tells you the totals — e.g. {"count": 137, "page": 2, "results": [ … ]}. See Pagination.

curl — a command-line tool for sending API requests by hand. The curl ... examples in these docs let you try an endpoint from a terminal without writing any code.

Rustango building blocks

These are the pieces you assemble to build an app. Each links to its full guide.

Model — a description of one kind of thing your app stores, like a Post or a User. You write it as a Rust struct; Rustango turns it into a database table. See the ORM guide.

Migration — a recorded change to your database's shape (adding a table, a column…). You generate one with makemigrations and apply it with migrate, so every environment ends up with the same database structure.

Serializer — the translator between your database rows and the JSON your API sends and receives. It decides which fields are visible, renames or computes fields for output, and validates incoming data. It shapes data; it doesn't save it (the model does that). See the Serializers guide.

ViewSet — takes a model and a serializer and produces a complete CRUD JSON API (all five verbs above) automatically, so you don't hand-write each endpoint. The API view. See the ViewSets guide.

HTML view (template view, class-based view) — the server-rendered counterpart to a ViewSet: turns a model into HTML pages — a list page, a detail page, and create/edit/delete forms — rendered through Tera templates, instead of JSON. The HTML view. See HTML views.

Template — a file with placeholders (Rustango uses Tera, much like Django templates or Jinja) that the server fills with data to produce an HTML page. {{ post.title }} drops in a value; {% for … %} loops.

Router / mount — the router maps incoming URLs to the code that handles them. To mount a ViewSet means "attach its endpoints to your app at a given path", e.g. mount the posts API at /api/posts. See URLs & routing.

Middleware (a "layer") — code that runs around every request — before your handler and after it — for cross-cutting concerns like logging, rate limiting, security headers, or CSRF. "Layer" is Rustango's word for one piece of middleware. See the Middleware guide.

Pool (or executor) — the database connection your code uses to read and write. Rustango asks you to pass the pool into each database call explicitly (rather than hiding it in a global), so it's always clear what touches the database. You'll see &pool as the last argument to ORM calls.

QuerySet — a database query you build up step by step in Rust (Post::objects().filter(...).order_by(...)) before running it. It's lazy: nothing hits the database until you fetch it.

Feature flag — an on/off switch, set in Cargo.toml, that includes or excludes a chunk of the framework at build time. It lets you keep your app small by compiling only what you use. Most features are on by default.

Scaffolding — generator commands (startapp, make:serializer, make:viewset…) that write starter files for you so you don't begin from a blank page. See Scaffolding.

Data and the database

Field / column — one piece of data on a model, like a post's title or published_at. "Field" is the Rust side; "column" is the database side; they line up one-to-one.

Primary key — the unique id that identifies one row, usually an auto-incrementing number called id.

Foreign key (FK) — a field on one model that points at another model's row, modelling a relationship — e.g. a Post has an author_id foreign key pointing at an Author. It's how rows reference each other.

NULL / nullable — NULL is the database's word for "no value / empty". A nullable field is allowed to be empty; a non-nullable one is required.

Tri-dialect — "works the same on all three supported databases" — PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite. When a feature is tri-dialect you can switch databases without changing your code.

A few Rust words

You don't need to know Rust to read most examples, but these four words show up everywhere.

struct — a named bundle of fields, like a record or a class with only data. Models and serializers are structs.

Derive macro (#[derive(Model)], #[derive(Serializer)]…) — a one-line annotation above a struct that tells the compiler to auto-generate a pile of code for you (the database mapping, the JSON conversion, …). It's the magic that turns a plain struct into a working model or serializer.

async / .await — Rust's way of handling work that involves waiting (a database query, a network call). A function marked async is "awaitable"; the .await after a call means "wait here for the result". Anything touching the database is async.

Result / Option — how Rust reports outcomes instead of throwing exceptions. A Result is "success or an error"; an Option is "a value or nothing". The ? you see after some calls means "if this failed, stop and return the error".

Frameworks we compare to

These docs occasionally say "like X" to help readers coming from other ecosystems. The comparisons are a bonus — you never need them to follow a guide.

Django — a popular Python web framework. Rustango borrows much of its shape (models, migrations, an admin UI, the manage commands).

DRF (Django REST Framework) — Django's add-on for building REST APIs. Rustango's serializers and ViewSets are modelled on it, so "DRF-shape" means "laid out the way DRF does it" — e.g. validation errors returned as a JSON object keyed by field name.

Laravel / Rails — popular PHP and Ruby web frameworks, mentioned for the same "if you've used this, this will feel familiar" reason.