Glossary
Key terms and concepts used throughout Teale documentation.
Network
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| TealeNet | The overall Teale network, encompassing all nodes, relays, and protocols. |
| PTN | Private TealeNet. An invite-only subnet with certificate-based membership and fixed-rate pricing. |
| WWTN | World Wide TealeNet. The public, open network where anyone can participate. Uses reverse auction pricing. |
| Node | A device participating in the network. Identified by its Ed25519 public key. |
| Peer | Another node that the current node is aware of or connected to. |
| Relay | A server that facilitates peer discovery, signaling, and fallback data transport for nodes that cannot connect directly. |
| Tier | A classification of node capability from 1 (backbone servers) to 4 (phones/leaf nodes). |
Protocols
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Ed25519 | An elliptic curve digital signature algorithm used for node identity. Each node's public key is its network ID. |
| Noise Protocol | A framework for building encrypted channels. Teale uses Noise_IK_25519_ChaChaPoly_BLAKE2s for optional end-to-end encryption. |
| STUN | Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (RFC 5389). Used to discover a node's public IP address and NAT type. |
| NAT | Network Address Translation. The mechanism that maps private IP addresses to public ones, which can prevent inbound connections. |
| ICE | Interactive Connectivity Establishment. A framework for finding the best path to connect two peers through NAT. |
| WFQ | Weighted Fair Queuing. The scheduling algorithm that prioritizes PTN traffic (70%) over WWTN traffic (30%). |
| Hole-punching | A NAT traversal technique where two peers simultaneously send packets to create NAT mappings that allow bidirectional communication. |
Inference
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| InferenceProvider | The core protocol abstraction in Teale. Any inference backend (MLX, llama.cpp, etc.) conforms to this protocol. |
| MLX | Apple's machine learning framework optimized for Apple Silicon. Used for on-device inference on macOS and iOS. |
| GGUF | A binary format for storing quantized language models. Used by llama.cpp for cross-platform inference. |
| llama.cpp | A C/C++ inference engine for running LLMs. Used on non-Apple platforms via the GGUF format. |
| Quantization | Reducing model precision (e.g., from fp16 to q4) to decrease memory usage and increase speed, with some quality tradeoff. |
Architecture
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| CompilerKit | Teale module that compiles inference requests across multiple models (Mixture of Models). |
| AgentKit | Teale module that implements multi-step agent workflows with tool use. |
| ChatKit | Teale module that provides end-to-end encrypted group chat with CRDT-based sync. |
| ClusterKit | Teale module that manages LAN cluster formation, peer connections, and message routing. |
| WANKit | Teale module that manages WAN relay connections, Noise encryption, and NAT traversal. |
| TealeNetKit | Teale module that manages PTN membership, certificates, and invite flows. |
| CreditKit | Teale module that manages USDC wallet, transactions, and pricing calculations. |
Payments
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| USDC | USD Coin, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. The currency used for Teale network payments. |
| Solana | A high-throughput blockchain used for on-chain USDC settlement of Teale earnings. |
| Electricity floor | The minimum price a provider should charge to cover their electricity cost plus a 20% margin. |
| Reverse auction | WWTN pricing mechanism where providers bid to serve requests, and the lowest bid wins. |
Models
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Mixture of Models (MoM) | A technique where multiple models collaborate on a single request. A compiler model breaks down the task and routes sub-tasks to specialist models. |
| Model family | A group of related models from the same provider (e.g., Llama, Qwen, Gemma). |
| Parameter count | The number of trainable parameters in a model (e.g., 8B = 8 billion). Larger models are generally more capable but require more resources. |
Security
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| CA | Certificate Authority. In the PTN context, the Ed25519 keypair that signs membership certificates. |
| Certificate | A signed statement that a node belongs to a PTN with a specific role (admin, provider, consumer). |
| Canonical JSON | JSON encoded with sorted keys for deterministic output. Required for reproducible certificate signatures. |
| Channel binding | Verifying that both sides of an encrypted connection computed the same handshake hash, preventing MITM attacks. |
| Replay protection | A mechanism (sliding window bitmap) that prevents reuse of encrypted messages. |