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Definitions of terms and concepts used in Grand Central documentation.

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A

API Gateway
Entry point for all API requests, handling routing, authentication, and rate limiting Automated validation
Process that automatically reviews tool configurations for security, compliance, and performance requirements before enabling them in Grand Central Availability zone
Isolated location within a region for high availability

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C

Circuit breaker
Design pattern that prevents cascading failures by stopping requests to failing services Connector
Pre-built integration that connects Grand Central to external systems CQRS
Command Query Responsibility Segregation - pattern separating read and write operations

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D

Distributed tracing
Method for tracking requests across multiple services

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E

Event sourcing
Pattern where state changes are stored as a sequence of events External MCP server
Third-party MCP-compatible service hosted outside Grand Central that can be accessed through Grand Central’s unified interface for consistent authentication, auditing, and rate limiting

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H

Health check
Endpoint that reports the health status of a service Horizontal scaling
Adding more instances of a service to handle increased load

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I

Idempotency
Property where an operation produces the same result when executed multiple times

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J

JSON-RPC 2.0
Remote procedure call protocol used by MCP for communication between AI agents and Grand Central’s tool servers

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L

Load balancer
Distributes incoming traffic across multiple service instances

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M

MCP (Model Context Protocol)
Open protocol that enables AI agents to discover and invoke backend API operations as tools through standardized tool discovery and invocation endpoints Microservices
Architectural style where applications are composed of small, independent services

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N

Native tools
MCP tools backed directly by Grand Central’s internal APIs, included in platform subscriptions with predictable costs and optimized performance

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O

Observability
Ability to understand system behavior through logs, metrics, and traces

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R

Rate limiting
Controlling the number of requests a client can make in a time period Retry logic
Automatically retrying failed operations with backoff strategies

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S

Service mesh
Infrastructure layer that handles service-to-service communication SLO (Service Level Objective)
Target level of service reliability Subscription key
API key that authenticates requests to Grand Central’s endpoints and determines which endpoints are accessible

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T

Throughput
Number of requests processed per unit of time Tool discovery
MCP capability that allows AI agents to query available operations through the tools/list endpoint, receiving tool names, descriptions, and parameter schemas Tool invocation
Process of calling a specific MCP tool through the tools/call endpoint with required parameters, returning results to the AI agent Tool schema
JSON Schema definition describing a tool’s parameters, including required fields, data types, validation patterns, and descriptions that guide AI agents in correct usage

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V

Vertical scaling
Increasing resources (CPU, memory) of existing instances

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If you don’t find a term here, check the relevant section documentation or contact support.