Core concepts
Who this is for: anyone reading the rest of these docs.
SaaSLayer uses a small, fixed vocabulary. The same words mean the same thing in every module, API, and UI.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Customer | A SaaS company or builder that uses SaaSLayer. |
| Customer Admin | A person on the Customer's staff who administers SaaSLayer-backed services. |
| End User | A user of the Customer's product. |
| Instance | One Customer's deployed SaaSLayer service stacks. |
| Control Plane | SaaSLayer's plane for provisioning and operating Instances. |
| Admin Console | The full admin UI for Customer Admins. |
| Embedded Widgets | Themeable components embedded in the Customer's product for End Users. |
Two distinctions worth internalizing:
Customer Admins vs End Users
Customer Admins operate the platform (invite members, assign roles, rotate API keys, review audit trails). End Users experience the product — at most they see embedded widgets like an org switcher or a members list. The two audiences get different surfaces with different permissions, and SaaSLayer never conflates them.
Product concepts vs authorization concepts
Words like org, tenant, group, role, and grant are RBAC domain concepts — the things authorization decisions are made about. They are not audience labels. A Customer's product may map its own idea of "team" or "workspace" onto orgs and tenants however it likes.