Level-aware C4 semantic types
Use level-aware semantic types to describe the architectural responsibilities of systems, containers, and components in AAL.
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Semantic Types Overview
AAL C4 v0.2 introduces a level-aware semantic taxonomy. Semantic types are explicitly associated with valid C4 structural levels — they are no longer a single flat global list.
When you select an element in the Inspector, the Semantic Type dropdown shows only valid semantics for that element's structural type, grouped by category and searchable.
repository (architectural role), not springdata (technology). This makes the AAL taxonomy durable as technologies change.System Semantics
System semantics describe what role a Software System plays in the wider technology landscape. They are valid only on Software System elements.
84 semantic types across 13 categories.
Enterprise / Business
A general-purpose business application system.
system BillingApp "Billing Application" application
An integration or application platform.
system IntegrationPlatform "Integration Platform" platform
A web portal system providing access to multiple services.
system CustomerPortal "Customer Portal" portal
A Customer Relationship Management system.
system Salesforce "Salesforce" external crm
An Enterprise Resource Planning system.
system ERP "Enterprise Resource Planning" external erp
A billing and invoicing system.
system BillingPlatform "Billing Platform" billing
A payments processing system.
system PaymentSystem "Payment System" payments
An e-commerce or commerce platform.
system CommercePlatform "Commerce Platform" commerce
A policy administration system (insurance).
system PolicyAdmin "Policy Administration System" external policyadmin
A core business system (core banking, core insurance).
system CoreBanking "Core Banking System" external coresystem
A workflow or BPM system.
system ServiceNow "ServiceNow" external workflow
A content management system.
system ContentSystem "Content Management" external cms
A document management system.
system DocSystem "Document Management" external dms
A case management system.
system CaseSystem "Case Management System" external casemanagement
Identity / Security
An identity provider or IdP (Okta, Auth0, Azure AD).
system Okta "Okta" external identity
A security platform.
system SecurityPlatform "Security Platform" external security
A fraud detection platform.
system FraudPlatform "Fraud Detection Platform" external fraud
An Identity and Access Management system.
system IAM "IAM System" external iam
A Public Key Infrastructure system.
system PKI "PKI System" external pki
A Security Information and Event Management system.
system SecurityMonitoring "Enterprise SIEM" external siem
A Security Operations Center platform.
system SOC "Security Operations Center" external soc
Integration
An enterprise integration platform.
system IntegrationPlatform "Enterprise Integration" external integrationplatform
An enterprise API platform.
system CommonAPI "Enterprise API Platform" external apiplatform
An enterprise messaging platform.
system MessagingPlatform "Enterprise Messaging" external messagingplatform
An enterprise event platform.
system EventPlatform "Enterprise Event Platform" external eventplatform
A managed file transfer platform.
system MFTPlatform "Managed File Transfer Platform" external filetransferplatform
A partner integration platform.
system PartnerPlatform "Partner Integration Platform" external partnerplatform
Data
An enterprise data platform.
system EnterpriseData "Enterprise Data Platform" dataplatform
An analytics platform.
system AnalyticsPlatform "Analytics Platform" analytics
An enterprise data warehouse.
system DataWarehouse "Enterprise Data Warehouse" external datawarehouse
An enterprise data lake.
system EnterpriseLake "Enterprise Data Lake" external datalake
An enterprise lakehouse.
system EnterpriseLakehouse "Enterprise Lakehouse" external lakehouse
A Master Data Management platform.
system Customer360 "Customer 360" external mdm
An enterprise search platform.
system SearchPlatform "Enterprise Search" external searchplatform
A reporting and BI platform.
system ReportingPlatform "Reporting Platform" external reporting
A data contract platform enforcing schema and quality agreements between producers and consumers.
system DataContracts "Data Contract Platform" datacontract
A semantic/metrics layer providing governed, reusable business metrics.
system SemanticLayer "Semantic Metrics Layer" semanticlayer
A data mesh platform enabling domain-oriented, decentralized data ownership.
system DataMesh "Data Mesh Platform" datamesh
A reverse ETL platform syncing warehouse data back into operational tools.
system ReverseETL "Reverse ETL Platform" reversetl
AI
An enterprise AI platform.
system EnterpriseAI "Enterprise AI Platform" aiplatform
An AI model serving platform.
system OpenAIPlatform "AI Model Platform" external modelplatform
An AI agent platform.
system AgentPlatform "Enterprise Agent Platform" agentplatform
A machine learning platform.
system MLPlatform "ML Platform" external mlplatform
A knowledge management platform for AI.
system KnowledgePlatform "Knowledge Platform" external knowledgeplatform
A platform for evaluating, benchmarking, and regression-testing AI models and agents.
system EvalPlatform "AI Evaluation Platform" evalplatform
A retrieval-augmented generation platform combining ingestion, retrieval, and generation.
system RAGPlatform "Enterprise RAG Platform" ragplatform
A multi-agent orchestration platform that coordinates autonomous agents and workflows.
system AgentOrchestrator "Agent Orchestration Platform" agentorchestration
A model registry and catalog for versioning, lineage, and governance of AI models.
system ModelRegistry "Model Registry" modelregistry
A voice AI platform (speech-to-text, text-to-speech, voice agents).
system VoiceAI "Voice AI Platform" voiceai
A multimodal AI platform handling text, image, audio, and video.
system MultimodalAI "Multimodal AI Platform" multimodalai
An agent-to-agent (A2A) network platform for inter-agent discovery and collaboration.
system A2ANetwork "Agent-to-Agent Network" a2aplatform
Observability / Operations
An observability platform (Datadog, New Relic).
system Datadog "Observability Platform" external observability
A monitoring platform.
system MonitoringPlatform "Monitoring Platform" external monitoring
A log management platform.
system LoggingPlatform "Log Management" external logging
An IT Service Management platform.
system ServiceManagement "IT Service Management" external itsm
A DevOps platform.
system DevOpsPlatform "DevOps Platform" external devops
A CI/CD platform.
system CICDPlatform "Enterprise CI/CD Platform" cicd
Infrastructure / Cloud
A cloud platform (AWS, Azure, GCP).
system AWSPlatform "AWS Platform" cloudplatform
A hosting platform.
system HostingPlatform "Hosting Platform" external hostingplatform
A container orchestration platform (Kubernetes, ECS).
system KubernetesPlatform "Container Platform" containerplatform
A serverless compute platform.
system ServerlessPlatform "Serverless Platform" external serverlessplatform
A networking platform.
system NetworkPlatform "Network Platform" external networkplatform
An edge computing platform.
system EdgePlatform "Edge Platform" external edgeplatform
Legacy
A legacy system (informational, not judgmental).
system Ingenium "Ingenium PAS" external legacy
A mainframe system (IBM z/OS, AS/400).
system Mainframe "Core Mainframe" external mainframe
A host system.
system HostSystem "Host System" external host
A monolithic system.
system Monolith "Monolithic System" external monolith
SaaS / External Provider
An external SaaS platform (Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday).
system Salesforce "Salesforce" external saas
A third-party service.
system ThirdParty "Third Party Service" external thirdparty
A partner system.
system PartnerSystem "Partner System" external partner
A government system.
system GovernmentSystem "Government System" external government
An external banking system.
system ExternalBank "Partner Bank" external bank
A payment provider.
system Stripe "Stripe" external paymentprovider
A notification provider.
system Infobip "Infobip" external notificationprovider
An identity provider service.
system OktaIdP "Okta Identity Provider" external identityprovider
Platform Engineering
An internal developer platform and portal (Backstage-like) with golden paths and templates.
system DeveloperPortal "Internal Developer Portal" developerportal
A platform engineering system providing shared capabilities to product teams.
system PlatformEngineering "Platform Engineering" platformengineering
Real-Time / Streaming
A real-time data and streaming platform (Kafka, Flink, Pulsar).
system RealTimePlatform "Real-Time Platform" realtimeplatform
FinOps / Sustainability
A FinOps platform for cloud cost visibility, optimization, and unit economics.
system FinOpsPlatform "FinOps Platform" finops
A sustainability platform tracking carbon footprint and energy efficiency.
system GreenOps "GreenOps Platform" greenops
Supply Chain Security
A zero-trust security platform enforcing identity-based access.
system ZeroTrust "Zero Trust Platform" zerotrust
A software supply chain security platform (SBOM, SLSA, artifact signing).
system SupplyChainSecurity "Supply Chain Security" supplychainsecurity
A cloud security posture management (CSPM/CWPP) platform.
system PostureManagement "Cloud Posture Management" posturemanagement
An API security platform for discovery, testing, and runtime protection.
system APISecurity "API Security Platform" apisecurity
component LoginController "Login Controller" controller
"controller" is a Component semantic type, not a System semantic type. System semantics include crm, identity, coresystem, dataplatform, aiplatform, etc.
Container Semantics
Container semantics describe deployable/executable/runtime responsibilities inside a Software System. They are valid only on Container elements.
112 semantic types across 13 categories.
Experience & Channels
A native mobile application (iOS, Android, React Native).
container MobileApp "Mobile App" mobile
A web application or browser-based interface.
container WebPortal "Web Portal" web
A single-page application.
container AdminSPA "Administration UI" spa
A desktop application (Windows, macOS, Linux).
container TradingTerminal "Trading Desktop" desktop
A physical device endpoint (POS terminal, kiosk, ATM).
container PaymentTerminal "Payment Terminal" device
An IoT gateway or edge device.
container SensorGateway "IoT Gateway" iot
A command-line interface tool.
container OperationsCLI "Operations CLI" cli
Application & Compute
An application programming interface (REST, GraphQL, gRPC).
container CustomerAPI "Customer API" api
A Backend for Frontend — a specialized adapter between frontends and backend services.
container BFF "Backend for Frontend" bff
A background service or microservice.
container NotificationService "Notification Service" service
A microservice.
container OrderMicroservice "Order Microservice" microservice
A background-processing worker that consumes messages or jobs.
container NotificationWorker "Notification Worker" worker
A scheduled or on-demand batch processing workload.
container ReconciliationBatch "Reconciliation Batch" batch
A serverless function (AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run).
container TokenFunction "Token Function" function
A job scheduler or orchestration engine.
container JobScheduler "Job Scheduler" scheduler
A scheduled job.
container CleanupJob "Cleanup Job" job
A daemon process.
container BackgroundDaemon "Background Daemon" daemon
A data processor.
container DataProcessor "Data Processor" processor
An orchestration service.
container WorkflowOrchestrator "Workflow Orchestrator" orchestrator
Integration & Messaging
An API gateway that routes and transforms requests.
container Gateway "API Gateway" gateway
A dedicated API gateway.
container APIGateway "API Gateway" apigateway
A message queue for asynchronous point-to-point communication.
container CommandQueue "Command Queue" queue
A message broker that routes messages between publishers and subscribers.
container MessageBroker "Message Broker" broker
An enterprise event bus for publish/subscribe event distribution.
container EventBus "Enterprise Event Bus" eventbus
A data streaming platform (Kafka Streams, Kinesis, Pulsar).
container KafkaStream "Transaction Stream" stream
A messaging topic.
container OrderTopic "Order Topic" topic
A publish/subscribe channel.
container NotificationPubSub "Notification Pub/Sub" pubsub
A managed file transfer service (MFT, SFTP gateway).
container MFT "Managed File Transfer" filetransfer
An integration adapter.
container LegacyAdapter "Legacy Adapter" adapter
An integration connector.
container CRMConnector "CRM Connector" connector
A reverse proxy.
container ReverseProxy "Reverse Proxy" proxy
Data
A relational or NoSQL database.
container ClientDB "Client Database" database
A relational database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle).
container CustomerDB "Customer Database" relationaldb
A NoSQL database (MongoDB, DynamoDB, Cassandra).
container ProfileStore "Profile Store" nosqldb
An in-memory cache (Redis, Memcached).
container SessionCache "Session Cache" cache
An object/blob storage service (S3, Azure Blob).
container Documents "Object Storage" objectstore
A file storage service.
container FileStore "File Store" filestore
A raw data lake for unstructured and semi-structured data.
container EnterpriseLake "Enterprise Data Lake" datalake
A structured analytics data warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery).
container AnalyticsWarehouse "Analytics Warehouse" warehouse
A unified lakehouse combining lake and warehouse semantics.
container DataLakehouse "Enterprise Lakehouse" lakehouse
A search and indexing engine (Elasticsearch, OpenSearch).
container SearchIndex "Search Index" search
A vector embedding store for similarity search (Pinecone, Weaviate).
container KnowledgeVectors "Knowledge Vector Store" vectorstore
A graph database (Neo4j, Amazon Neptune).
container RelationshipGraph "Graph Database" graphdb
A time-series database (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, Timestream).
container MetricsStore "Metrics Store" timeseriesdb
An ML feature store for serving and training features.
container MLFeatures "Feature Store" featurestore
A metadata repository.
container MetadataRepo "Metadata Repository" metadatarepository
A real-time data store or materialized view for low-latency serving.
container RealTimeData "Real-Time Data Store" realtimedata
A governed metrics and semantic layer service (dbt metrics, Cube).
container MetricsService "Metrics Service" metricsservice
A data contract service enforcing producer/consumer schema agreements.
container DataContract "Data Contract Service" datacontract
A reverse ETL service syncing warehouse data to operational systems.
container ReverseETL "Reverse ETL Service" reversetl
Security / Identity
An identity service or IdP.
container IdentityService "Identity Service" identity
An authentication service.
container AuthService "Authentication Service" authservice
An authorization service.
container AuthZ "Authorization Service" authorization
A web application firewall.
container WebFirewall "Web Application Firewall" waf
A network firewall.
container NetworkFirewall "Network Firewall" firewall
A secrets management vault (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager).
container SecretsVault "Secrets Vault" secrets
A key management service for encryption keys.
container KeyManagement "Key Management Service" kms
A token issuance and validation service.
container TokenService "Token Service" tokenservice
A certificate management service.
container CertManager "Certificate Manager" certificate
A zero-trust access gateway enforcing identity and context per request.
container ZeroTrustGateway "Zero Trust Gateway" zerotrustgateway
A software bill of materials generation and scanning service.
container SBOMService "SBOM Service" sbom
A data loss prevention service for sensitive data classification and blocking.
container DLPService "DLP Service" dlp
A cloud security posture management service (CSPM/CWPP).
container PostureService "Posture Management" posture
Platform
A platform service.
container AppPlatform "Application Platform" platform
An application runtime.
container Runtime "Application Runtime" runtime
A container orchestration platform (Kubernetes, ECS).
container RuntimePlatform "Container Platform" containerplatform
A serverless compute platform (Lambda, Cloud Run).
container ServerlessBackend "Serverless Backend" serverless
A content delivery network (CloudFront, Cloudflare).
container ContentDelivery "Content Delivery Network" cdn
A load balancer or traffic distributor.
container ApplicationLB "Application Load Balancer" loadbalancer
A reverse proxy.
container ReverseProxy "Reverse Proxy" reverseproxy
A service mesh (Istio, Linkerd).
container ServiceMesh "Service Mesh" servicemesh
AI / ML
A generative AI service or platform.
container GenAIService "Generative AI Service" ai
A foundation or language model serving endpoint.
container FoundationModel "Language Model" model
An AI agent runtime or orchestration service.
container AgentRuntime "AI Agent Runtime" agent
A Model Context Protocol tool server.
container MCPServer "MCP Server" mcpserver
An embedding generation service for vector representations.
container EmbeddingService "Embedding Service" embedding
An AI guardrail, safety, or content-filtering service.
container AIGuardrail "AI Guardrail Service" guardrail
A prompt management and optimization service.
container PromptService "Prompt Service" promptservice
A model gateway that routes and load-balances LLM requests.
container ModelGateway "Model Gateway" modelgateway
A model inference service.
container InferenceService "Inference Service" inference
A model training service.
container TrainingService "Training Service" training
A retrieval-augmented generation pipeline (ingest, chunk, embed, retrieve, generate).
container RAGPipeline "RAG Pipeline" rag
A registry of tools/functions callable by AI agents (MCP tools, function calling).
container ToolRegistry "Tool Registry" toolregistry
An evaluation service for AI quality, regression, and benchmarking.
container EvalService "AI Eval Service" eval
A model fine-tuning and adaptation service (LoRA, instruction tuning).
container FineTuning "Fine-Tuning Service" finetuning
A speech and voice service (STT, TTS, voice agents).
container VoiceService "Voice Service" voice
A multimodal service processing text, image, audio, and video.
container MultimodalService "Multimodal Service" multimodal
A persistent memory and context store for AI agents (short/long-term memory).
container AgentMemory "Agent Memory Store" agentmemory
A document chunking and ingestion service for RAG pipelines.
container ChunkingService "Chunking & Ingestion" chunking
An agent-to-agent (A2A) server exposing an agent for inter-agent collaboration.
container A2AServer "A2A Server" a2aserver
A multi-agent coordinator that routes, delegates, and supervises agents.
container AgentCoordinator "Multi-Agent Coordinator" agentcoordinator
Observability / Ops
A combined observability platform.
container ObservabilityStack "Observability Stack" observability
A metrics collection and monitoring service.
container MetricsCollector "Metrics Collector" monitoring
A log aggregation and pipeline service.
container LogPipeline "Log Pipeline" logging
A distributed tracing collector (Jaeger, Zipkin, OTel).
container TraceCollector "Trace Collector" tracing
A metrics collection service.
container MetricsService "Metrics Service" metrics
An alerting service.
container AlertingService "Alerting Service" alerting
A health check service.
container HealthCheck "Health Check Service" healthcheck
Legacy
A legacy application.
container LegacyApp "Legacy Application" legacy
A monolithic application.
container MonolithApp "Monolithic Application" monolith
A mainframe application.
container MainframeApp "Mainframe Application" mainframeapp
A legacy batch process.
container LegacyBatch "Legacy Batch Process" batchlegacy
Platform Engineering
An internal developer portal with service catalog and golden paths.
container DevPortal "Developer Portal" idp
A golden-path template service providing scaffolding and standardized workflows.
container GoldenPath "Golden Path Template" goldenpath
Real-Time / Streaming
A real-time service over persistent connections (WebSocket, SSE, WebRTC).
container RealTimeService "Real-Time Service" realtime
A WebSocket service for bidirectional, low-latency communication.
container WebSocketService "WebSocket Service" websocket
A server-sent events streaming endpoint.
container SSEService "SSE Service" sse
FinOps / Sustainability
A cloud cost optimization and rightsizing service.
container CostOptimizer "Cost Optimizer" costoptimizer
A carbon and energy-efficiency tracking service.
container CarbonTracker "Carbon Tracker" carbontracker
Edge / WebAssembly
A WebAssembly runtime for portable, sandboxed compute.
container WASMRuntime "WASM Runtime" wasm
An edge compute function running close to users (Cloudflare Workers, Lambda@Edge).
container EdgeFunction "Edge Function" edgefunction
A composable WebAssembly component (component model).
container WASMComponent "WASM Component" wasmcomponent
container CRM "CRM" crm
"crm" is a System semantic type (unless explicitly configured as valid for Containers). Use Container semantics like api, web, database, eventbus, etc.
Component Semantics
Component semantics describe logical architectural responsibility inside a Container. They are valid only on Component elements. Components should represent architectural responsibilities, not individual implementation classes.
113 semantic types across 15 categories.
Entry / Interface
An MVC or web controller that receives HTTP requests and delegates to services.
component PolicyController "Policy Controller" controller
An API endpoint handler.
component UserEndpoint "User Endpoint" endpoint
A request or event handler.
component RegistrationHandler "Registration Handler" handler
A GraphQL resolver.
component UserResolver "User Resolver" resolver
An event or message listener.
component OrderListener "Order Listener" listener
A message receiver.
component EmailReceiver "Email Receiver" receiver
A webhook handler that receives external callbacks.
component PaymentWebhook "Payment Webhook Handler" webhook
A CQRS command handler.
component RegistrationHandler "Registration Command Handler" commandhandler
A CQRS query handler.
component CustomerQueryHandler "Customer Query Handler" queryhandler
Application / Business Logic
A business service component.
component AuthService "Auth Service" service
An application service that orchestrates use cases.
component PolicyService "Policy Service" applicationservice
A domain service that encapsulates core domain logic.
component CustomerDomain "Customer Domain Service" domainservice
A domain module.
component CustomerDomain "Customer Domain" domain
A use case component.
component RegisterUser "Register User Use Case" usecase
An orchestrator that coordinates multi-step workflows.
component RegistrationOrchestrator "Registration Orchestrator" orchestrator
A workflow component.
component OnboardingWorkflow "Onboarding Workflow" workflow
A manager component that coordinates lifecycle operations.
component SessionManager "Session Manager" manager
A coordinator component.
component SagaCoordinator "Saga Coordinator" coordinator
A facade that simplifies access to complex subsystems.
component CustomerFacade "Customer Facade" facade
Data Access
A repository pattern abstraction over persistence or data access.
component PolicyRepository "Policy Repository" repository
A Data Access Object.
component CustomerDAO "Customer Data Access Object" dao
A data access component.
component CustomerDataAccess "Customer Data Access" dataaccess
A data mapper that translates between models.
component PolicyMapper "Policy Mapper" mapper
An Object-Relational Mapping component.
component CustomerORM "Customer ORM" orm
A query component.
component CustomerQuery "Customer Query" query
A read projection for CQRS read models.
component CustomerProjection "Customer Projection" projection
A data contract component enforcing schema agreements.
component DataContract "Data Contract" datacontract
A governed metric definition component.
component MetricDefinition "Metric Definition" metric
A reverse ETL sync component pushing warehouse data to ops tools.
component ReverseETLSync "Reverse ETL Sync" reversetl
Integration
An integration adapter that bridges external systems.
component IngeniumAdapter "Ingenium Adapter" adapter
An integration connector.
component CRMConnector "CRM Connector" connector
An external API client.
component OktaClient "Okta Client" client
An integration gateway component.
component PaymentGateway "Payment Gateway" gateway
A proxy component.
component APIProxy "API Proxy" proxy
A general integration component.
component ExternalIntegration "External Integration" integration
An event publisher.
component PolicyEventPublisher "Policy Event Publisher" publisher
A message producer.
component OrderProducer "Order Producer" producer
A message consumer.
component NotificationConsumer "Notification Consumer" consumer
A message subscriber.
component EventSubscriber "Event Subscriber" subscriber
Security
An authentication component.
component UserAuthenticator "User Authenticator" authenticator
An authorization component.
component AccessAuthorizer "Access Authorizer" authorizer
A validation component.
component PayloadValidator "Payload Validator" validator
A token validation component.
component TokenValidator "Token Validator" tokenvalidator
A permission component.
component PermissionCheck "Permission Check" permission
An authorization policy component.
component AuthorizationPolicy "Authorization Policy" policy
A security filter component.
component SecurityFilter "Security Filter" filter
An interceptor component.
component AuthInterceptor "Auth Interceptor" interceptor
An authorization policy engine (OPA, Cedar) evaluating rules.
component PolicyEngine "Policy Engine" policyengine
A software bill of materials generator component.
component SBOMGenerator "SBOM Generator" sbom
A data loss prevention filter component.
component DLPFilter "DLP Filter" dlp
A cloud security posture check component.
component PostureCheck "Posture Check" posturecheck
A component that accesses secrets from a vault.
component SecretsAccessor "Secrets Accessor" secretsaccessor
Processing / Transformation
A data processor.
component EventProcessor "Event Processor" processor
A data transformer.
component DataTransformer "Data Transformer" transformer
A parser component.
component PayloadParser "Payload Parser" parser
A serializer.
component JsonSerializer "JSON Serializer" serializer
A deserializer.
component JsonDeserializer "JSON Deserializer" deserializer
A data enricher that adds supplementary data.
component ClientEnricher "Client Data Enricher" enricher
A data aggregator.
component MetricsAggregator "Metrics Aggregator" aggregator
A data normalizer.
component DataNormalizer "Data Normalizer" normalizer
A data converter.
component UnitConverter "Unit Converter" converter
Rules / Decisioning
A business rule.
component EligibilityRule "Eligibility Rule" rule
A rules engine.
component EligibilityRules "Eligibility Rules Engine" rulesengine
A decision engine.
component DecisionEngine "Decision Engine" decision
A rule evaluator.
component PolicyEvaluator "Policy Evaluator" evaluator
A scoring component.
component FraudScorer "Fraud Scorer" scorer
Cache / State
A cache client component.
component CacheClient "Cache Client" cacheclient
A session manager component.
component SessionManager "Session Manager" sessionmanager
A state manager component.
component StateManager "State Manager" statemanager
A state store component.
component StateStore "State Store" store
AI
An AI agent component.
component AgentPlanner "Agent Planner" agent
An AI planner component.
component AgentPlanner "Agent Planner" planner
An AI tool component.
component SearchTool "Search Tool" tool
An AI tool adapter component.
component CRMTool "CRM Tool Adapter" tooladapter
A prompt component.
component SystemPrompt "System Prompt" prompt
A prompt builder component.
component PromptBuilder "Prompt Builder" promptbuilder
A model client component.
component ModelClient "Model Client" modelclient
An embedding client component.
component EmbeddingClient "Embedding Client" embeddingclient
A knowledge retriever component.
component KnowledgeRetriever "Knowledge Retriever" retriever
A result reranker component.
component ResultReranker "Result Reranker" reranker
An AI guardrail component.
component AIGuardrail "AI Guardrail" guardrail
An AI memory component.
component AgentMemory "Agent Memory" memory
A context builder component.
component ContextBuilder "Context Builder" contextbuilder
An AI evaluation component that runs quality and regression checks.
component AIEvaluator "AI Evaluator" aieval
A retrieval-augmented generation component.
component RAGComponent "RAG Component" rag
A document chunking and ingestion component for embeddings.
component DocumentChunker "Document Chunker" chunker
A registry of callable AI tools and functions.
component ToolRegistry "Tool Registry" toolregistry
A component that invokes tools/functions on behalf of an agent (function calling).
component FunctionCaller "Function Caller" functioncaller
A multi-agent coordinator that routes and supervises agent execution.
component AgentCoordinator "Agent Coordinator" agentcoordinator
A speech/voice processing component (STT, TTS).
component VoiceComponent "Voice Component" voice
A multimodal component handling text, image, audio, or video.
component MultimodalComponent "Multimodal Component" multimodal
A Model Context Protocol client that calls MCP tool servers.
component MCPClient "MCP Client" mcpclient
An agent-to-agent client that collaborates with other agents.
component A2AClient "A2A Client" a2aclient
A model fine-tuning and adaptation component.
component FineTuner "Fine-Tuner" finetuner
Observability
A logger component.
component AuditLogger "Audit Logger" logger
A tracer component.
component RequestTracer "Request Tracer" tracer
A metrics collector component.
component MetricsCollector "Metrics Collector" metricscollector
A telemetry component.
component TelemetryCollector "Telemetry Collector" telemetry
An audit component.
component AuditLogger "Audit Logger" audit
Scheduling / Background
A scheduler component.
component TaskScheduler "Task Scheduler" scheduler
A job component.
component CleanupJob "Cleanup Job" job
A worker component.
component BackgroundWorker "Background Worker" worker
A task component.
component BackgroundTask "Background Task" task
Platform Engineering
A golden-path component providing standardized workflows.
component GoldenPath "Golden Path" goldenpath
A scaffolding component that generates service templates.
component Scaffolder "Scaffolder" scaffold
A platform plugin extending the developer portal.
component PortalPlugin "Portal Plugin" plugin
Real-Time / Streaming
A real-time handler over persistent connections.
component RealTimeHandler "Real-Time Handler" realtime
A WebSocket handler component.
component WebSocketHandler "WebSocket Handler" websocket
A server-sent events handler component.
component SSEHandler "SSE Handler" sse
FinOps / Sustainability
A cost analysis and unit-economics component.
component CostAnalyzer "Cost Analyzer" costanalyzer
A carbon and energy reporting component.
component CarbonReporter "Carbon Reporter" carbonreporter
Edge / WebAssembly
A WebAssembly module component.
component WASMModule "WASM Module" wasm
An edge compute handler running close to users.
component EdgeHandler "Edge Handler" edgehandler
component DB "Database" database
"database" is a Container semantic type, not a Component semantic type. Use Component semantics like repository, dataaccess, store, etc.
Cross-Level Semantics
Some semantic types are valid at more than one C4 level. These are explicitly defined with allowedStructuralTypes rather than assumed to be globally valid.
For example, identity is valid for both System (identity provider) and Container (identity service). agent is valid for both Container (AI agent runtime) and Component (AI agent component).