---
title: "Concepts"
description: "The five nouns the whole product is made of, and how they relate."
url: "https://saved.sh/docs/concepts"
---

Everything in saved.sh is built from five objects. Learn what each one is and the rest of the
documentation reads itself.

```
Workspace ─► Backup ─► Run ─► Artifact
  tenant    definition  execution  stored file
```

Each arrow is ownership. A workspace owns its backups, a backup owns its runs, and a
successful run produces exactly one artifact. A **worker** sits beside that chain: it is the
credential that lets a machine you control execute a run.

<Cards>
  <Card href="/docs/concepts/workspaces" title="Workspace" description="The tenant. Members, permissions, quotas and billing all belong to one workspace." />

  <Card href="/docs/concepts/backups" title="Backup" description="A definition: what to copy, on what schedule, kept for how long. Not the copy itself." />

  <Card href="/docs/concepts/runs" title="Run" description="One execution of a backup. Succeeds or fails, and says which." />

  <Card href="/docs/concepts/artifacts" title="Artifact" description="What a run produced. Sized, retained under a policy, and downloadable." />

  <Card href="/docs/concepts/workers" title="Worker" description="A credential that lets a machine you control claim work. Not a machine." />
</Cards>

Two cross-cutting ideas complete the picture:

<Cards>
  <Card href="/docs/concepts/retention" title="Retention" description="The one setting that bounds what you store, fixed when the backup is created." />

  <Card href="/docs/concepts/quotas" title="Quotas" description="Per-workspace limits, checked before anything is created." />
</Cards>

## The distinction that causes the most confusion [#the-distinction-that-causes-the-most-confusion]

**A backup is not a copy of your data.** It is the definition that says what to copy. The
copies are artifacts.

That matters the moment you act on one:

| You want to                           | You act on               |
| ------------------------------------- | ------------------------ |
| Change a schedule, a source, or a key | The **backup**           |
| Stop it running for a while           | The **backup** (`pause`) |
| Download or restore data              | An **artifact**          |
| Delete one copy                       | An **artifact**          |
| See why last night failed             | A **run**                |

"Delete the backup" almost never means what people intend, and it is refused while artifacts
still exist for exactly that reason.

## Words we deliberately do not use [#words-we-deliberately-do-not-use]

Vocabulary here is chosen once and kept, because two words for one thing costs more than it
saves.

| Not used          | We say     | Why                                                              |
| ----------------- | ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Project           | **Backup** | It named the definition and read like a container                |
| Job               | **Run**    | Collides with cron's recurring series and CI's unit-inside-a-run |
| Agent             | **Worker** | It is a credential, not an autonomous thing                      |
| Key, for a worker | **Token**  | "Key" is reserved for encryption keys                            |

That last one is worth internalising. In these docs:

* A **key** is your PGP encryption key. We hold the public half only.
* A **token** authenticates a worker.
* An **API key** authenticates automation, and is the one place the word is overloaded.

## Where things live [#where-things-live]

| Object                                     | Held by                            |
| ------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------- |
| Backup definitions, artifacts, runs, audit | Us                                 |
| Source credentials, `local` backups        | **Your worker's config file**      |
| Source credentials, `cloud` backups        | Our vault                          |
| The private encryption key                 | **You, only**                      |
| Members and roles                          | Our identity provider              |
| Artifact bytes                             | Our storage, your buckets, or both |

## Next [#next]

<Cards>
  <Card href="/docs/quickstart" title="Quickstart" description="These five nouns, in ten minutes." />

  <Card href="/docs/backups" title="Backups in depth" description="Once the vocabulary is clear." />

  <Card href="/docs/reference/glossary" title="Glossary" description="Every term, alphabetically." />
</Cards>