Blue Dot / Signal
A local signal of intent from a citizen or enterprise, around livelihoods and services. Stored as an item.
Glossary
The vocabulary below is used consistently across the product, this documentation and the code. Definitions are deliberately precise.
Domain model
Section titled “Domain model”Network
The shared contract that lets independent instances interoperate (e.g. blue_dot, yellow_dot). Defined by a network.json schema.
Domain
A role inside a network (e.g. student). An instance serves one or more domains via SERVED_DOMAINS.
Instance
One deployment of the Signals API serving its configured domains.
Item
A versioned, schema-typed record. item_type is a schema identifier such as profile_1.0, never freeform.
Action
An interaction between items.
Event
The structured result of an action.
Seeker / Provider
The demand side and supply side of a signal — e.g. a jobseeker (seeker) and a local employer (provider).
Service Provider
An organisation delivering a support service around the job-seeking process — training, counselling, assessment, placement assistance. The third participant type, served by the service_provider domain.
Blue Dot Verified
The state a profile reaches after a person — the adaptor or the aggregator — reviews and confirms it. The one human-in-the-loop step in the lifecycle.
Assisted route
Onboarding where the adaptor or field team brings a participant in on their behalf.
Self route
Onboarding where the participant starts the process themselves.
Intake method
How data is collected on the assisted route: offline camp, bulk upload, outbound campaign, or inbound QR campaign.
AI Voice Agent
The call-based, local-language channel for completing a profile. The primary self-service channel; its prompts are published as DPGs.
Blue Dot Webapp
The self-serve web app built on the Signals DPG — the fallback channel for participants who prefer typing to speaking.
MSME (a.k.a. SMB)
Micro, small and medium enterprise — the employer side of the livelihoods use case. These docs use MSME, matching the Indian statutory term. SMB means the same thing and is kept only in the Brown Dots sector naming.
Adaptor (a.k.a. adopter / anchor adopter)
The organisation deploying Blue Dots for a district, state or domain. These docs use adaptor throughout; adopter and anchor adopter mean the same role.
Platform
Section titled “Platform”Signals DPG
The network-aware backend that stores items and matches them across instances.
Aggregator DPG
The aggregator-facing application for onboarding participants and bulk-creating their signals.
Aggregator
An organisation (institute, employer, NGO, government department) that onboards participants. Scoped by aggregator_id, which is never trusted from the client.
Adaptor
An organisation deploying and extending the Blue Dots DPGs for a district or domain.
Technical
Section titled “Technical”item_type
Schema identifier for an item (e.g. profile_1.0).
item_instance_url / item_schema_url
Backend-generated URLs for an item’s location and schema. Never set by clients.
Instance-local fetch
GET /api/v1/item/fetch — reads “my own items” with a brief cache.
Inter-instance fetch
GET /api/v1/network/item/fetch — count-first discovery across peers, merged and cached.
Service token
A Keycloak client-credentials token used by an integrating DPG to call Signals, sent with an acting-org header. The client id equals the organisation’s slug.
Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- Core Concepts — the same vocabulary in context.
- The Blue Dot Lifecycle — the terms in the order a participant meets them.