Terminology

2205 terms, tools, patterns and metrics an architect is expected to use precisely. Each one gets a short explanation of what it is, and — where it matters — what it is commonly confused with. Search filters as you type; the column headers sort.

All areas2205 Architecture Fundamentals77 Distributed Systems107 Data Architecture110 Cloud Architecture94 Networking88 API & Integration Architecture82 Reliability & Resilience75 Observability70 Performance & Capacity Engineering72 Security Architecture86 Cost Architecture & FinOps71 Business Architecture67 Architecture Communication67 Enterprise Architecture66 Legacy Modernization71 AI-Era Architecture69 Software Architecture & Engineering71 Architecture Patterns71 Architecture Decision-Making63 The Architect's Meta-Skills61 Delivery & Release Engineering66 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience70 Testing & Quality Architecture66 Data Platform Architecture64 Streaming & Real-Time Data69 Data Governance & Semantics69 Frontend & Experience Architecture66 Edge, Mobile & IoT68 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture65 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk64

Kind Any concept794 practice734 pattern368 metric125 case-study77 tool62 protocol45

3 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Candidate Recall Ceiling First-Stage Recall, Retrieval Ceiling	metric	Reranking	The share of queries whose correct passage appears anywhere in the first-stage candidate set - the hard upper bound on every later stage, since reranking reorders what was retrieved and cannot add to it.
Reranking Cross-Encoder Reranking	pattern	Reranking	Retrieving a wide candidate set cheaply, then reordering it with a more expensive model that scores each candidate against the query directly.
Two-Stage Retrieval	pattern	Reranking	Retrieving a broad candidate set cheaply and then reordering it with an expensive, more accurate model.