Glossary

API Key

A credential issued to a service account that grants access to the Jaws Deploy REST API. API keys are included in the Authorization header using Basic auth format (service account ID and key pair).

Keys can be rotated or revoked independently in workspace settings without affecting other integrations.

Deployment

The execution of a release against an environment. When a release is deployed, Jaws Deploy resolves the environment-scoped variables, identifies the matching targets, and runs each step in the deployment process in order.

Every deployment is recorded: step status, duration, log output per target, and the overall outcome.

Deployment Process

The ordered list of steps that runs when a project's release is deployed to an environment. The same process is used for every environment in the lifecycle; environment-scoped variables supply the differences between runs.

Individual steps can be restricted to specific targets, tags, or environments, so parts of the process only execute where they are needed.

Environment

A named deployment tier such as Dev, Staging, UAT, or Production. Environments group the targets a release will deploy to and determine which variable values are used during a deployment.

Environments are ordered within a lifecycle, defining the promotion path a release follows on its way to production.

Jaws Deploy Agent

A lightweight background service installed on a deployment target. The Jaws Deploy Agent connects to the server, receives deployment instructions, executes steps locally, and streams log output back.

The agent runs on Windows and Linux and supports offline installation for air-gapped environments. A target must have a connected, registered agent before it can receive deployments.

Lifecycle

A sequence of environments defining how a release moves from creation to production. Each phase in a lifecycle can be mandatory or optional and can require manual approval or advance automatically when the previous phase completes.

A project references one lifecycle. Every release that project creates follows the same promotion path.

Package

A versioned deployment artefact containing the application code, binaries, or scripts to be deployed. Packages are typically zip archives, tarballs, or NuGet packages.

A release references specific package versions. Steps in the deployment process download and extract those packages to deployment targets.

Package Feed

A storage registry for versioned deployment packages. Jaws Deploy includes a built-in feed so teams do not need a separate artefact server; external feeds (NuGet repositories, Azure Artifacts, Amazon S3, and others) can also be registered alongside it.

Feeds are configured at the workspace level and referenced by individual deployment steps.

Project

A named deployable unit — typically an application, API, service, or batch job — that owns a deployment process, a set of project-scoped variables, and a full history of releases and deployments.

Projects deploy to environments through a lifecycle. The deployment process defines the ordered steps that run each time a release reaches an environment.

Project Folder

A named container for organizing related projects within a workspace. Project folders are purely organizational — they do not affect variable scoping, lifecycle assignment, or deployment behaviour. Teams with many projects use folders to keep the project list manageable.

Release

An immutable snapshot of the packages, variables, deployment process, and scripts that existed at a specific point in time. Once created, a release does not change — the same release is promoted through each environment in the lifecycle.

This immutability means what was tested in Staging is identical to what is promoted to Production: no rebuild, no reassembly.

Script Module

A shared PowerShell library that script steps across all projects can import. Script modules centralise utility functions — logging helpers, connection wrappers, validation routines — in one versioned location rather than copying code into every script step.

Secret

A variable whose value is treated as sensitive. Secret values are encrypted at rest, redacted in deployment logs, and never returned in plaintext through the API or UI after they are saved.

Secrets follow the same scoping rules as regular variables, so environment-specific credentials stay isolated between tiers.

Service Account

A system identity used by CI tools, scripts, and automated workflows to authenticate against the Jaws Deploy REST API. Each service account is issued an API key and carries permissions scoped to specific projects or an entire workspace.

Service accounts are the recommended integration mechanism for pipelines in TeamCity, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and similar tools.

Step

A single unit of work within a deployment process. Steps can run built-in actions (deploying a package, configuring IIS, applying a database migration), step templates shared across projects, or inline scripts.

Steps are executed in order. Each step can be restricted to run only on specific targets or in specific environments.

Step Template

A reusable, versioned step definition stored at the workspace level that any project can add to its deployment process. Step templates standardise common deployment tasks — installing a Windows service, sending a notification, running a health check — so the same logic is not duplicated across many projects.

Changes to a template can be pushed to all projects that reference it.

Tag

A label applied to deployment targets to group them by role, region, or purpose. Steps in a deployment process can be restricted to run only on targets carrying a given tag — for example, only on machines tagged web or db-primary.

Tags make it possible to model complex multi-machine deployments without creating a separate step per machine.

Target

A machine, cloud service, or endpoint that receives a deployment. Targets can be Windows or Linux servers running the Jaws Deploy Agent, cloud resources (such as Azure App Service, AWS Lambda, or Kubernetes workloads), or other types supported by step templates.

Targets are registered to environments and can be labelled with tags, letting steps in the deployment process run only on a specific subset of machines.

Variable

A named configuration value resolved at deployment time. Variables can be scoped to a workspace, project, environment, target, or tag, so the same deployment process naturally picks up different connection strings, service endpoints, or feature flags in each environment.

Values are substituted into scripts, configuration files, and step properties during a deployment run.

Workspace

The root organizational container in Jaws Deploy. A workspace holds all projects, environments, lifecycles, package feeds, targets, variables, and service accounts for a team or business unit.

Teams start with one workspace. Organizations with separate products or clearly divided operational boundaries may run multiple workspaces to keep access, billing, and configuration isolated.