Frontend
The part of an app you actually see and touch: the screens, buttons, and text that live on your device.
Like a restaurant's dining room: the tables and menus you sit with, while the kitchen works out of sight.
Glossary
The words, illustrated.
The vocabulary of building an app, one picture and one plain sentence at a time. No jargon defined with more jargon.
Backend
The part of an app you never see: where the data is stored and the real work happens, away from the screen.
Like a restaurant's kitchen: guests never go in, but it is where the cooking gets done.
Database
An organized store where your app keeps its information in neat rows, so it can find any of it again in an instant.
Like a filing cabinet with labeled drawers: everything has a place, so nothing is lost and anything can be pulled fast.
API
A set of doors a program opens so other programs can ask it for things in a fixed, predictable way.
Like a waiter: you do not walk into the kitchen, you ask the waiter, and the waiter brings back exactly what you ordered.
Cloud function
A small piece of logic that lives on your backend and runs on demand when your app asks for it.
Like a recipe the kitchen runs when you order it: you ask, it cooks, you get the dish back.
SDK
A ready-made kit of code someone else wrote, so you can use their service without building it from scratch.
Like a boxed cake mix: the hard parts are done for you, and you just add what makes it yours.
IDE
The workshop where you write, run, and fix code, with the tools you need gathered into one window.
Like a well-set workbench: your tools laid out within reach instead of scattered across the room.
Git and repositories
A system that saves every version of your project as you go, so you can see what changed and step back if you need to. A repository is one project's full history.
Like a save button with unlimited undo: every checkpoint kept, so you can always return to one that worked.
Deployment
Taking the app off your own machine and putting it somewhere on the internet where other people can reach it.
Like opening a shop: you stop cooking just for yourself and unlock the door for customers.
Authentication
How an app checks that you are who you say you are, before it lets you in to your own stuff.
Like the key to your front door: it proves the home is yours before the lock opens.
MCP
A shared standard that lets an AI like Claude plug into outside tools, your files, a database, the web, without custom wiring for each one.
Like a universal adapter: one plug shape that fits every socket, instead of a different cable for every device.
Claude Code
An AI you direct from your terminal that reads your project, writes and edits real code, and runs commands for you.
Like a skilled builder who already knows the trade: you describe what you want, and they do the hands-on work.
Comfortable with the words?
These are the ideas Zovia Snapshot is built on. When they feel familiar, the build feels a lot less like a leap.