Glossary

Laravel Sail

A CLI wrapper for a Laravel Docker Compose development environment. It is a local-development option, not production deployment or a first-pilot requirement.

Laravel Sanctum

Laravel authentication using mechanisms such as API tokens or SPA sessions. It is not another name for JWT or a complete OIDC provider; inspect the application’s actual model.

Laravel Tinker

An interactive Laravel application console. Calling a service can write data; use an isolated environment.

Large language model

LLM

Large Language Model

A model generating or evaluating text sequences from learned distributions. Fluent output does not establish truth; require checkable sources and task evaluation.

Lease

A time-limited right to process work. Another worker may reclaim it after expiry, so a stale worker must not unconditionally acknowledge the new attempt.

Least privilege

Grant only permissions needed for the task, with suitable scope and duration. Migration accounts, applications and agents should not automatically share administrator privileges.

Lexical search

Selects content using words and curated name variants. It is a predictable retrieval baseline; paraphrases may need vocabulary expansion or another method.

Line endings: LF and CRLF

LF

Line Feed

CRLF

Carriage Return + Line Feed

The representation of a line boundary in a text file. A Bash script with CRLF may include an extra CR in an interpreter or command name. Keep LF in project scripts and follow repository rules; changing line endings does not fix application logic.

Lint

Code analysis for selected rules and suspicious constructs without running a business scenario.

List comprehension

Syntax for building a list by transforming and optionally filtering input items. In Python it builds the list eagerly; it is not a lazy generator.

Liveness

A signal that detects a state requiring a process restart. If it depends on database availability, an outage may unnecessarily restart every replica.

Load Balancer

LB

Load Balancer

A component distributing traffic across instances. Readiness, timeouts and retries still need design; traffic distribution does not ensure idempotency.

Local date

A calendar date without time, UTC offset or timezone. Useful for a date of birth. It does not identify an instant and cannot alone replace a reservation expiry deadline.

Local date and time

A date and time without a timezone or UTC offset. During clock changes a local time can be ambiguous or nonexistent. Converting it to an instant requires an explicit rule and timezone.

Lockfile

A file recording resolved package versions and dependencies. It supports repeatable installation, but does not replace runtime pinning or behavioral tests.

Long-term support

LTS

Long-Term Support

A designation for extended support of a product line. Exact terms depend on vendor and distribution; LTS does not imply indefinitely free support.

LSP

LSP

Liskov Substitution Principle

An implementation preserves contract promises: it does not require more from inputs or guarantee less about results. Matching signatures are insufficient.

Memory allocator

A mechanism allocating and reclaiming memory for a program. In PHP, memory_get_peak_usage(true) reports peak memory allocated from the system by PHP memory management, not the whole process RSS. Compare equal work in separate runs.

Memory model

Rules governing visibility and ordering of memory operations between tasks. Without appropriate synchronization another thread may not observe the expected change.

Memory units

MB

Megabyte

GB

Gigabyte

MiB

Mebibyte

GiB

Gibibyte

MB and GB usually use powers of ten; MiB and GiB use powers of two. State units with budgets and measurements instead of comparing different quantities under the same number.

Middleware

A layer in request handling, such as logging, authentication or error mapping. Layer order affects available context and results.

mise

A runtime/tool version and project-task manager. Configuration selects versions; inspect a new repository before trusting its tasks and settings.

Missing value: null

NULL is a missing-value marker, not an abbreviation.

A missing value or reference interpreted by the language or database. Check boundaries: SQL NULL, an omitted JSON field and an empty string need not mean the same thing.

Mock and stub

Test doubles for dependencies. Stubs provide controlled responses and mocks often verify interactions; neither proves compatibility with a real provider.

MockMvc

A tool testing Spring MVC through request handling without opening a real HTTP server. It checks mapping, validation and responses in the test configuration, not the deployed port, TLS or whole environment.

Model Context Protocol

MCP

Model Context Protocol

A protocol exposing tools and context to AI applications. Connecting to an MCP server does not authorize every action; still control permissions, data and effects.

Model routing

A rule selecting a model for a task based on difficulty, cost and latency. Selection and any escalation should be explicit and evaluated on examples.

Model–view–controller

MVC

Model–View–Controller

A separation of model, presentation and interaction handling. In a backend, MVC should not justify placing all rules and transactions in HTTP controllers.

Modular monolith

One deployed application with explicit module boundaries. Those boundaries require discipline and dependency tests; they are not automatically process or failure boundaries.

Money in the domain model

PLN is the ISO 4217 currency code for the Polish zloty, not a design pattern or technical acronym. 1 zloty = 100 groszy.

A value requiring amount, currency and rounding rules. Do not add different currencies as one number or assume identical minor-unit scales for every currency.