Key concepts

SPARK uses a small, consistent vocabulary. Once these terms click, the rest of the documentation stays short because it can lean on them. This page is a quick reference, so skim it now and come back whenever a word needs pinning down.

The big picture: a workspace holds your data, which you organize into Spaces, visualize on canvases, act on through tasks, files, and workflows, and hand off to agents in threads. Everything below is a piece of that sentence.

Where everything lives

Term	What it means
Organization	The account-level container managed by your identity provider. It holds one or more workspaces, and its limits and data region apply to all of them. Its settings are the Organisation group in Settings.
Workspace	Your team's tenant: its own data, members, and settings. The unit of isolation, so data never crosses between workspaces.
Threads, Ecosystem, Settings	The sidebar's three tabs. Threads holds your conversations, Ecosystem what the workspace holds, Settings its configuration.
New Thread page	Where a workspace opens: a greeting, the composer to hand work to an agent, and your Recents.
Ecosystem page	The Ecosystem tab's own page: a card for each Space, each Agent Studio page, each feature and each agent.
Space	A container for a single use case, with its own page: the objects, canvases, tasks, files, workflows, agents and threads that belong together. It can be shared with people outside the workspace.
Pinned	The pages, threads and messages you pinned for one-click access, in the sidebar's Pinned section, grouped into folders if you like.
Guest	Someone outside the workspace a Space was shared with. A guest can view that Space after signing in with a link sent to their email.
Limits & Quotas	What your organization can use each month and each hour (NGT tokens, workflow runs, document extractions) and at any moment (seats, storage).

Learn more in Organisation, Create a Space, Navigating the workspace and Limits & Quotas.

Talking with people and agents

Term	What it means
Thread	A conversation. Every message posted in a channel starts one, and replies sit under it; a thread you start from the New Thread page opens in a direct message. The Threads page lists every thread in your channels, latest activity first.
Channel	A place for a team to talk, and to ask agents. A public channel is open to everyone in the workspace; a private one only to the people added to it. Every workspace keeps its #general. Administrators create and manage channels.
Direct message	A conversation with one or more people, or with an agent. In your own direct message with an agent, it answers every message.
Context	The items a thread is about: data objects, files, canvases, tasks, workflows, spaces. Every agent in the thread is given them on every turn, in the context panel beside it.
Mention	@ and a name, to tag a person or an agent. An agent answers only a message that names it, except in your direct message with it.
Notifications	The bell beside Search: who mentioned you, replied in a thread you are in, or assigned you a task.

Learn more in Start a thread, Add context to a thread, Channels and Direct messages.

Working with data

Term	What it means
Data object	A structured collection of records, like a table with typed columns. Your core data lives here.
Record	A single row in a data object: one counterparty, one position, one document.
Attribute	A typed field on a data object (text, number, date, relationship, and so on): the columns of the table.
Relationship	A link between records, often across objects, so related data travels together.
View	A saved way of looking at a data object: a specific set of columns, filters and sorting.
Template	A preset data object SPARK ships, such as Fund, Share Class or NAV Record, to create one from instead of starting blank.
Standard field	A field SPARK provides on Tasks and Files. It can be shown and filtered, but not renamed, retyped or archived.
Custom field	A field your workspace added to Tasks or Files, alongside the standard ones.
Edit mode	The mode a record grid or a canvas has to be in before you can change what it holds. Reading is the default.

Learn more in Create a data object, Relationships, Manage data views, Data object templates, Reading and editing and Task fields.

Seeing and tracking work

Term	What it means
Canvas	A visual board built from widgets, backed by your data.
Widget	A single element on a canvas: a chart, a KPI, a table, or the workspace's tasks or files.
Task	A tracked work item that can be assigned, given a status, and linked to the data it relates to.
File	A document or input stored in the workspace, uploaded by hand or brought in automatically.

Learn more in Build a canvas, Create a task, and the Files section.

Automating operations

Term	What it means
Workflow	An automation that runs a repeatable operation from a trigger through one or more actions.
Trigger	The event that starts a workflow: a schedule, a new file, or a change in data.
Action	A step a workflow performs once triggered.
Human-in-the-loop	An approval step that pauses a workflow for a person to approve or reject before it continues.

Learn more in Build a workflow and Human-in-the-loop.

Agents

Term	What it means
Agent	Runs inside your workspace, sees your context, and takes real actions on your behalf when you name it in a thread.
Spark (agent)	The agent built into every workspace. It can use all of SPARK's tools, and a message that names no agent goes to it.
Built-in agents	The agents SPARK ships in every workspace: Spark, the Solutions Engineer, which proposes a setup for the workspace, and the Coding Assistant, which writes a workflow's custom code. An administrator switches each on or off.
Agent Studio	Where agents and everything they use are configured: agents, models, skills, tools, memory, connectors, vaults and guardrails. Open it with Studio on the Ecosystem tab, or from Settings.
Tool	A specific capability an agent can use to perform an action. SPARK's own are the NGT Tools.
Skill	A packaged set of instructions that shapes how an agent handles a particular kind of task. The managed ones SPARK ships are the NGT Skills.
Memory	A store where agents save what they learn, to recall in later threads.
Guardrail	A check on an agent's model and tool calls that keeps it within the rules you set.
Connector	A link to an external system an agent can reach, including over MCP.
MCP	Model Context Protocol, a standard way to expose external tools and data to an agent through a connector.
Vault	A secure store for credentials (like API keys) so an agent can authenticate without exposing them. A personal vault is yours alone; a shared vault serves everyone, in agents and in workflows.

Learn more in the Agent Studio section: the Spark agent, models, memory, guardrails, tools, skills, connectors & MCP, and vaults.

Plugins and the five layers

Term	What it means
Plugin	One use case, packaged: NAV oversight, fee checks, look-through and more. Every use case is a plugin, built in five layers.
Agent Studio (layer)	Identity, connectors, vaults, permissions and memory: where the plugin is built.
Orchestration	A deterministic workflow or an agent runs the steps. Routine steps need no model call.
NGT Skills	Own the procedure and call NGT Tools. Given, not invented.
NGT Tools	Deterministic calculations and connectors. Numbers fetched, never inferred. They run on three engines: NGT Data Management, NGT Analytics and the NGT Exception Framework.
Guardrails (layer)	A person or an agent checks the exit. Every run replayable.

Learn more in What is SPARK?, NGT Skills and NGT Tools.

Getting data in and out

Term	What it means
Import	Bringing external data into a data object, for example from a CSV.
Export	Taking data out of SPARK in a portable format.
Extension	An add-on a workspace switches on in Settings, under Extensions, such as the Mailbox and Managed SFTP.
Mailbox	A receive-only email address for the workspace. It keeps what it receives for 7 days; a workflow saves the emails and their attachments for good.
Managed SFTP	An SFTP server the workspace's own accounts sign in to with SSH keys, so files they upload land in Files.

Learn more in Add, edit & import records, Manage data views, Mailbox and Managed SFTP.

Where to go next

Go deeper on any term: Search finds its page.
Put them to use: Quick start.