# Concepts and Glossary

The vocabulary Escape uses across the platform, the docs, and the CLI. Bookmark this page; every other guide assumes you know these terms.

## Asset Model

- **Domain**: a top-level DNS name Escape discovers or that you added in scope (`api.example.com`, `staging.example.com`).
- **Asset**: a concrete target Escape tracks over time: a domain, an IP, a repository, an API, a web application, or an LLM-backed endpoint. Every asset has a type, a classification, and a lifecycle.
- **Endpoint**: a single path served by an asset. An OpenAPI spec with 40 routes produces 40 endpoints under one asset.
- **Schema**: the contract an asset exposes (OpenAPI, GraphQL SDL, gRPC proto). Schemas are either provided, inferred, or reconstructed during a scan.

## Scanning Model

- **Profile (Application)**: a saved scan configuration. Profiles bind an asset (or set of assets) to authentication, scope rules, scanner settings, and the scanner that runs them.
- **Scan**: one execution of a profile. Scans have a status, a duration, an authenticated run, and a result set.
- **Security Test**: one check in the scanner's catalog. Each test targets a specific vulnerability class (BOLA, SSRF, prompt injection, and so on) and produces findings when its conditions match.
- **Issue (Finding)**: the result of a security test firing. Issues have severity, exploitability evidence, affected endpoints, and a remediation guide.

## Operations Model

- **Location**: where the scan runs from. Public Locations are Escape-operated egress points; [Private Locations](</documentation/platform/private-location/>) run inside your network.
- **Main User**: the authenticated user a scan runs as. Multi-user scans introduce more users with different roles to exercise access-control checks.
- **Sensitive Data (Scalar)**: a typed class of value Escape tracks across traffic (PII, credentials, tokens). Escape raises exposure findings when sensitive data leaves a context it shouldn't.

## Classification

- **Severity**: Critical, High, Medium, Low, or Info. Escape uses its own **Escape Severity** rating, which incorporates CVSS as a baseline along with exploitability in context, API-specific risk, and real-world business impact. CVSS scores are also available on every finding.
- **Compliance Category**: the control a finding maps to in a framework (OWASP API Top 10, PCI-DSS, SOC 2). One finding can map to many.

Every concept above has a dedicated page under the relevant product section. When a term shows up in a guide, the first use links back here.