Glossary

Short definitions for the words you meet while using Desde. Each links to the page that covers it properly. For the more technical terms used in the Editor's and Viewer's internals, see the technical glossary.

Access#

Who is allowed to open a prototype in the Viewer. It is one of three settings: all members (anyone with an account on that Viewer can open it), invited (only people added to that prototype's access list), or public link (anyone with the URL, no sign-in). See Project access.

Branch#

A separate line of work in git, your project's own version control. You can make changes on a branch without touching the version everyone else sees. See Commit, branch and push.

Comment#

A note left on the prototype, attached to a specific part of the screen so it stays put even if the layout changes later. See Comments on the prototype.

Commit#

A labeled checkpoint in your project's history that you can always come back to. See Commit.

Component#

A reusable piece of your design system, such as a button or a card, that gets used in more than one place.

Deployment#

One Viewer build of a prototype at a particular version. It is what a reviewer actually sees when they open the prototype's link. See Deploy a prototype.

Design system#

The shared set of components, colors, spacing and rules a team already uses to build its product. See Your design system, understood.

Editor#

The Desde app you use to make changes to a prototype yourself, on your own computer. See the Editor guide.

Inspector#

The panel where you see and change whatever you have selected: its text, its variants, its spacing, its color, and more. See Select and inspect.

Manifest#

Desde's description of one component: its props, which ones are variants, and what values they accept. See Your design system, understood.

Member#

Someone with an account on a Viewer instance. Every member has one role, Admin, Editor, or Viewer, which decides what they are allowed to manage. See Instance roles.

Participant#

Someone who has commented on, or been mentioned on, a prototype, and can be emailed about activity there. See Comments on the prototype.

Pin#

The marker a comment leaves on the prototype, at the spot it was left. Click a pin to open the comment. See Comments on the prototype.

Prop#

A single setting on a component, such as its size or its color. Short for "property". See Your design system, understood.

Prototype#

The running version of a product you review or edit in Desde. It is built from a real project's source code, not a mockup.

Pull request#

A request, sent through GitHub, asking a teammate to review your branch before it joins the shared version. See Open pull request.

Publish#

Folding your branch into the default branch, the version everyone else sees, in one step, without asking anyone to review it first. See Publish.

Resolve#

Marking a comment thread as done, so it moves out of the way but is not deleted. See Reply and resolve.

Selection#

Whatever you currently have clicked on in the prototype. The Inspector always shows the current selection.

Session#

One conversation thread with the AI, shown as its own tab in the chat panel. It is not a separate copy of your code; every session edits the same files. See Ask the AI.

Slug#

A prototype's URL-safe name in the Viewer, the part that appears in its link. See Deploy a prototype.

Structure tree#

The outline of the page, in the Edit tab of the right-hand panel, showing every element as a nested list. See The Structure tree.

Token#

A named design value, such as a spacing step or a color, defined once and reused across a design system. Changing a token can change every place that uses it. See Your design system, understood.

Variant#

A named choice for a prop that only accepts a fixed set of values, such as small, medium or large. See Your design system, understood.

Viewer#

The Desde app your team uses to review a prototype together: comments, mentions, and a link anyone on the team can open. See the Viewer guide.