Glossary | SYNC

Documents & Authoring

Terms

11

Coordination Checklist: A project-level summary of every deferred requirement across all of the project's standards. It gives the team one place to track outstanding decisions; items can be checked off manually or resolve automatically once a value is specified.
Datasheet: The configurable template portion of a standard — a structured set of questions and choices that define equipment or material parameters. By default a datasheet is a blank template; it becomes a filled-out document when instantiated within a project.
Datasheet Instance: A filled-out copy of a datasheet within a project. Each instance captures the specific selections and data for a particular scope of work — for example, indoor panelboards vs. outdoor panelboards, or supply fans vs. exhaust fans. A single standard can have multiple instances of the same datasheet, each with its own revision history.
Datasheet Upgrade: The process of moving a filled-out datasheet instance to a newer revision of its parent standard. The upgrade tool carries your existing selections forward where they still apply and flags anything that needs your attention — removed options, changed field types, or values that no longer fit — so you can resolve conflicts before the new revision is applied.
Deferred Requirement: A field whose value is intentionally left to the drawings or to the project engineer rather than fixed in the specification — for example, "As indicated on the drawings." Deferred requirements are tracked so nothing that still needs a decision is silently treated as complete.
Drawing Reference: A marker on a datasheet field indicating that its value is commonly shown on the drawings rather than in the specification. It pre-labels the field as deferred and links the requirement into the project's coordination checklist.
Requirement (Clause): A single, independently addressable requirement within a specification — typically one normative statement using "shall," "should," or "may." Each requirement is rendered as a numbered clause (for example, 1.4.2) so it can be cited precisely.
Section: A navigational heading within a standard that groups related content (such as Scope, Products, or Installation). Sections organize a document and appear in its table of contents; they are distinct from individual numbered requirement clauses.
Specification: The written narrative portion of a standard. A specification defines requirements, descriptions, and technical guidance in prose form. When a standard is added to a project, its specification can be customized with project-specific details and comments. "Specification" is also the common construction-industry term for this kind of document.
Standard: The complete template for a particular subject area, combining a specification (the written narrative) with a datasheet (the configurable choices). Standards are versioned independently and serve as the master source of truth from which project-level work is derived.
Standards Markup: The lightweight syntax used to author a standard, turning a plain-text file into a structured, configurable specification. It marks which lines are sections, which are requirement clauses, and which datasheet fields are configurable. See the Standards Markup Syntax guide for the full reference.

Organization & Libraries

Terms

7

Category: A grouping used to organize standards within a discipline or library, and to file specifications within a project. Categories form the primary navigation structure for browsing and locating standards.
Company: An organizational entity that groups users together. Users belong to a company to create and manage projects, and companies have their own administrators and role hierarchies.
Company Library: A collection of standards owned by and scoped to a single company, visible to that company's members. Companies use their library to maintain proprietary or customized standards alongside the public SynC wiki.
Discipline: A top-level grouping of standards by trade or engineering field — for example, Electrical, Mechanical, or Instrumentation & Controls. Disciplines provide the highest level of organization for the SynC Standards wiki.
Personal Library: A user's own private collection of standards, separate from the SynC wiki and any company library. Personal standards can be drafted, revised, and imported into projects like any other standard.
Project: The central organizing unit in SynC. A project represents a construction effort and contains specifications, datasheets, and associated documentation.
SynC Standards Wiki: The open, community-maintained library of construction standards that anyone in the SynC community can read, use, and improve. Wiki standards can be imported into any project. Contributors write the content, moderators review it, and adopters finalize official versions.

Revisioning

Terms

6

Adopted Revision: The official, stable version of a wiki standard. After contributors propose changes and a reviewer finalizes them, that revision becomes the adopted revision and the previous official version is marked superseded.
Change Type: A label applied to elements in a revision indicating what happened: "added" (new), "modified" (changed from the previous revision), or "removed" (deleted).
Content Fingerprint: A short, glance-comparable code derived from a revision's full content hash. If even a single character of the content changes, the fingerprint changes — making it easy to check that a document has not been altered since it was published. The full content hash is the authoritative value used for verification.
Publish: The act of creating a new revision. Publishing freezes the current state and generates a formal, permanent record that can be referenced and distributed.
Revision: An immutable, checksum-verified snapshot of a project, standard, or datasheet at a specific point in time. Revisions track additions, modifications, and removals between versions.
Snapshot: The captured state of a document at the moment a revision is published. Each snapshot stores the full content rather than only the differences, so older revisions remain readable and verifiable on their own.

Contribution & Attribution

Terms

7

Adopter: A reviewer responsible for finalizing a wiki standard into its official, adopted revision. Adopters provide the editorial check that turns proposed changes into the stable version everyone relies on.
Attribution: The public record shown with a wiki contribution, captured at the time the contribution is made. It identifies the contributor's name, professional role, and affiliated organization. Attribution is recorded as a snapshot, so it reflects the facts as they stood when the work was contributed.
Conflict of Interest Disclosure: The full list of a contributor's active employers shown on each contribution, so readers can judge potential bias for themselves. Every active employer association is disclosed in a neutral order; contributors cannot hide or reorder them.
Contributor: Any user who has accepted the Contributor License Agreement and writes or edits standards in the SynC wiki. Contributions are openly attributed and become part of the community library.
Contributor License Agreement (CLA): The legal agreement a user must accept before contributing to the SynC wiki. It grants SynC the rights needed to host, modify, and distribute community contributions while keeping the library open. Contributors re-accept when a new version of the agreement is published.
Contributor Trust Badge: A small mark shown next to certain contributions to signal their source. The "Official" badge identifies first-party content authored by SynC itself (such as the SynC Standards Team). Badges are granted deliberately by administrators, not earned automatically.
Moderator: A user empowered to review wiki contributions, manage categories, and moderate content. Moderators help keep the community library accurate and well organized.

People & Access

Terms

5

Employer Association: A verified link between a user account and a company. A user can hold more than one active association at a time — for example, when consulting for multiple firms — and every active association is disclosed on their wiki contributions.
Join Request: A request to join an existing company, submitted with a short attestation of your role. A company administrator reviews the request and approves or declines your access.
Permission: A single granular right to perform a specific action, such as editing a specification or exporting a project. Permissions are grouped into roles, which are then assigned to users.
Primary Employer: The employer association a user designates as their default when they have more than one. It sets the default company context for new work and for the profile headline, but it does not change which employers are disclosed on contributions — all active associations are always shown.
Role: A set of permissions assigned to a user at a specific level (site, company, or project). Roles determine what actions a user can perform, such as creating projects, editing specifications, or managing users.

Sharing & Distribution

Terms

5

Access Records: The log, shown on the Distribution page, of every published revision transmitted to a recipient — who received which revision, when, and who sent it. A record is evidence of what was sent, not a right to open the project: you decide who has access and can remove it at any time. Removing access does not delete the record.
Distribution: The process of sharing a published project revision with external stakeholders. Recipients receive a secure share link that grants access to the project snapshot without needing a full SynC account.
Forwarding: The ability for a share-link recipient to pass access along to additional people. Forwarding can be enabled or disabled when you create a link, and forwarded access is tracked just like the original.
Remove Access: Ends access for a recipient who has already accepted a share link. This is distinct from revoking a link: revoking stops the link being accepted by anyone new, while removing access ends access somebody already has. Recipients keep any copies they exported before access was removed.
Share Link: A secure link that grants access to a specific published project revision with the permissions you choose. You control how long it lasts, who can use it, and whether recipients may forward it. Every use is tracked. (Also referred to as a distribution token.)

Integrations & Export

Terms

3

API Key: A credential you create to let an external tool, AI agent, or script access SynC on your behalf. Each key is limited to a subset of your own permissions, and you can revoke it instantly at any time.
Export: Saving a published project revision in a portable format outside SynC. Project data can currently be exported as JSON (in a compact or fully detailed form), with additional formats on the roadmap.
Integration: An external tool, agent, or script connected to SynC through an API key. Integrations operate within the permissions you grant them and never exceed your own access.