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Glossary

Definition of terms used in the source code and documentation.

Events​

Standalone Event: An event that has a datetime and is NOT recurring. It represents a single occurrence.

Grid Event: An event that is assigned to a specific time slot on the calendar in the grid view. These events have both a date and time.

Draft Event: A calendar event that has pending changes that have not yet been persisted to the database. When a user makes changes to an event in the form, drags the event or resizes its times, the user is operating on a draft event. After the user clicks "Save", the draft event is persisted to the database, and the Draft Event goes away and is replaced with the Event.

Someday Event: These have startDate and endDate like regular timed events, but they have not yet been assigned to a specific time slot on the calendar in the grid. Instead, they are stored in the sidebar (Someday/Maybe list). These may be recurring or standalone.

Base Event: A recurring event that defines the recurrence pattern. It has the series RRULE in the recurrence field and serves as a template for generating instances.

Instance Event: A recurring event that is an individual occurrence of a base event. Instances are generated based on the base event's recurrence rule.

Calendar Concepts​

Calendar: A calendar is a collection of events. It is the main object in the application. In Compass, each user has their primary calendar.

Calendar List: Also known as sub-calendars. A calendar list is a collection of calendars. In Google Calendar, users can have multiple calendars (e.g., "Work", "Personal", "Holidays").

Calendar View: A calendar view is a way to view a calendar. Compass supports:

  • Day view
  • Week view
  • Month view
  • Now mode (focus on current task)

Primary Calendar: The main calendar associated with a user's Google account. Compass currently syncs only the primary calendar.

Sync & Authentication​

Sync: The Compass feature that allows users to sync their calendar data with other calendars like Google Calendar. Sync can be bidirectional (changes in Compass update Google Calendar and vice versa).

Sync Channel: A notification channel set up with Google Calendar that notifies Compass when events change. Managed via Google Calendar's watch API.

nextSyncToken: A token provided by Google Calendar API that allows incremental syncing. It represents the state of the calendar at a point in time.

gAccessToken: Google OAuth access token used to authenticate API requests to Google Calendar.

gRefreshToken: Google OAuth refresh token used to obtain new access tokens when they expire. Stored securely in MongoDB.

Technical Terms​

Redux Store: The centralized state management store for the React frontend. Contains all application state including events, user data, and UI state.

Redux Saga: Middleware for Redux that handles side effects (API calls, async operations) in a declarative way.

Duck Pattern: A Redux pattern that co-locates actions, reducers, and selectors in a single file (or directory) for a feature domain.

WebSocket: A communication protocol used for real-time bidirectional communication between the frontend and backend. Used to push updates when events change.

Supertokens: The authentication library used by Compass to manage user sessions, access tokens, and refresh tokens.

MongoDB Collection: A collection in MongoDB is similar to a table in a relational database. Compass uses collections for users, events, syncs, etc.