Angular DevTools inspects a running Angular app and serves what it finds to a panel and to AI agents over MCP. This glossary fixes the words the project uses for its own concepts, so that a name means one thing in the code, the docs, issues and commit messages. Each entry gives the term, what it means here, and the words to avoid for it.
Page: One browser tab running the inspected app with the overlay loaded. Several pages can report to the same server at once, and each one's data is kept apart. Avoid: tab (a tab is a view in the panel), client, window
pageId:
The short id a page claims when the overlay starts, kept in sessionStorage so a reload keeps it, and replaced when a duplicated tab already holds it. Everything the page reports carries it, and the server expires a page's data when its reports stop.
Avoid: tab id, session id, client id
Overlay:
The script the app imports in main.ts in development only (@santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools/overlay). It finds the server, starts the collectors and adds the floating button. It reads the page; it never changes it on its own.
Avoid: content script, agent, injected script
Collector:
One inspector's page-side code inside the overlay, such as forms-collector.ts or pipes-collector.ts. It reads the app through Angular's debug APIs, gives objects stable ids through a WeakMap, and pushes a report tagged with the pageId.
Avoid: scraper, probe, watcher
Push:
A report a collector sends to the server over RPC, such as push-component-tree. A collector sends one when something changed, and a keepalive at intervals so the server knows the page is still there. Pushes stay cheap.
Avoid: sync, upload, post
Inspector:
One area the devtools can look at: components, injectors, signals, ngrx, forms, router, pipes, http and analog (NG_DEVTOOLS_INSPECTORS in config.ts). An inspector owns a collector, its RPC functions, its agent tools and its view in the panel, and inspectors in the config turns all of them off together.
Avoid: plugin, module, feature
Devframe:
The framework the devtools are built on (devframe). One definition, packages/ng-devtools/src/devframe.ts, declares the RPC functions, shared state and agent tools, and Devframe serves it as the embedded panel, the standalone CLI, the static report and the MCP server.
Avoid: framework, runtime, backend
Hub:
The server part an app mounts: initNgDevtoolsHub() for Express, or the Vite plugin. It is built on @devframes/hub, serves the panel and the connection file under /__devframes/, and lets other Devframe tools join the same dock.
Avoid: server (too broad), middleware, proxy
Dock:
The rail of entries the hub shows (Angular, NgRx, Analog, and the Coming Soon placeholders), each opening a view of the panel (hub-docks.ts).
Avoid: sidebar, menu, tab bar
Panel:
The devtools UI, the Angular app in app/. The hub serves it, the popup frames it on the page, the static report bundles it, and the Chrome extension ships a committed build of it in extension/ui.
Avoid: dashboard (the Dashboard is one of its views), UI app, client
Popup:
The floating button the overlay adds to the page, and the panel it opens in a frame beside the app (popup.ts).
Avoid: launcher, widget, modal
Tab: One view in the panel, such as Components or Router. Most tabs belong to one inspector; the Dashboard summarises all of them. Avoid: page (a page is a browser tab), screen
RPC function:
A server function the panel or an agent calls over Devframe RPC, listed in RPC_INSPECTOR in config.ts so it disappears with its inspector.
Avoid: endpoint, API, handler
Agent tool:
An RPC function marked for agents, which Devframe exposes as an MCP tool. It is listed in AGENT_INSPECTOR, and in ACTION_TOOLS too when it writes.
Avoid: MCP command, function, skill
Action:
Anything that changes the app or the server rather than reading it: setting a form value, navigating, restoring store state, HTTP fault rules. actions in the config blocks them, and agent.readOnly drops the agent tools that perform them.
Avoid: mutation, command, write tool
Resource:
Live state an agent reads as JSON over MCP, such as ng-devtools:component-tree. It holds what the connected pages reported, so it is empty when no page is connected.
Avoid: snapshot, feed, state dump
Source scan: What the devtools read from the project's source files rather than the running page: components, routes, signals, providers, NgRx declarations and pipes. It is all the standalone CLI and the static report have. Avoid: static analysis, AST pass, crawl
Static report:
An offline HTML build of the panel over the source scan, written by ng-devtools build --outDir <dir>. No page connects to it.
Avoid: export, snapshot, static site
Redaction:
Masking values before they reach the panel or an agent: field names that look secret (plus redaction.secretNames), JWTs and bearer tokens. It runs in serialize and the redaction helpers, and redaction.unmask lists the names to show anyway.
Avoid: sanitizing, scrubbing, hiding
One-time code:
The code the server prints in the terminal, which a browser exchanges before it can read any data. It is on by default for the Express hub and turned on by the Vite plugin when a non-loopback host or origin is allowed. auth: false turns it off.
Avoid: token (the MCP endpoint's bearer token is a different thing), password, PIN
Lint:
A check an inspector runs over what it collected and reports as findings in its tab and through an agent tool, such as Router Lint or Forms Lint (lint-routes, lint-forms).
Avoid: audit, validation, analysis