Definitions for core concepts used across the Priostack platform, from process modelling standards to credit terms.
The Agent Context Network is Priostack's shared memory service for AI agents. It is a live MCP server at https://priostack.com/mcp; on 29 September 2026 its tools/list returned 42 tools. An agent registers with noetic.register, connects with its token, and stores and fetches context in spaces it owns or has been granted.
Usage by agents bound to your Priostack account is charged to your credit balance by an hourly meter: 1 credit per space per hour, and 1 credit per 100 queries on an agent's spaces, paid by the space owner. An hour the balance cannot cover is not charged, and the network never answers 402.
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN 2.0) is the ISO/IEC 19510 standard for describing business processes as flow diagrams. It defines elements such as events, tasks, gateways, and sequence flows that represent how work moves from start to end.
Priostack deploys BPMN 2.0 XML process definitions directly to its execution engine. Each deployed definition can be instantiated any number of times.
See also: Definition, Instance, Token (BPMN)
A case is a CMMN construct representing a unit of work whose exact path is not fully predetermined. Unlike a BPMN process, a case can have tasks that are enabled, disabled, or manually triggered depending on conditions that emerge at runtime.
Priostack supports case management for knowledge-work scenarios such as fraud investigation or insurance claims, where a rigid flowchart is insufficient.
Case Management Model and Notation (CMMN 1.1) is an OMG standard for describing adaptive, knowledge-intensive processes. It models cases as containers of tasks, milestones, and sentries (triggers) that activate work when conditions are met.
CMMN complements BPMN: use BPMN for well-structured flows and CMMN when the process is event-driven and ad-hoc.
A connector is a stored integration definition: a chain of activities and their configuration, built in the Connectors tab to describe how a workflow should reach an external system.
Connectors can be created, cloned, exported and published today, but Priostack does not execute them yet: an inbound connector webhook answers 501, and no credits are charged for connectors.
Credits are the unit Priostack charges in. There is one balance per account (per API key); workspaces have no balance of their own. Charged calls cost 1 credit each: a process instance or CMMN case started, a decision evaluated, a model deployed through /api/v1/models, a user task completed through POST /api/v1/tasks/{id}/complete. Deploying BPMN through /api/v1/process-definitions, completing service jobs, every read and connectors are free. Agent Context Network hosting and queries, and PAOL runs, are charged per unit of use.
Every account gets 100 credits at signup and 100 more every 24 hours. No credit expires, whatever its origin, and credit packs (from €5) top the balance up. When the balance is too low, charged calls return 402.
See also: Workspace
A decision table is a DMN construct that maps input conditions to output conclusions using a grid of rules. Each row in the table is a rule; when the inputs satisfy a row's conditions, that row fires and its outputs are returned.
Decision tables support hit policies (UNIQUE, FIRST, COLLECT, etc.) that control what happens when multiple rows match.
A process definition is the deployed artefact - the BPMN, CMMN, or DMN XML - registered with the execution engine. Deploying assigns it a key and a version number: redeploying the same process id creates version n+1, running instances keep the version they started on, and new starts use the newest version.
On Priostack, BPMN is deployed from the dashboard's Processes tab or with POST /api/v1/process-definitions (free). DMN, CMMN, ArchiMate and BPMN models can also be deployed with POST /api/v1/models (1 credit, refunded if the deploy fails).
Decision Model and Notation (DMN 1.3) is an OMG standard for representing business decision logic independently of any process. DMN models describe what decisions exist, what information they need, and how they are made - typically as decision tables or literal expressions.
Priostack evaluates DMN decisions inline during BPMN execution or as standalone calls, using the FEEL expression language for rule conditions.
See also: Decision Table, FEEL
The execution engine is the runtime component that interprets BPMN/CMMN/DMN models, manages process state, schedules jobs for workers, and persists audit trails. Priostack's engine is horizontally scalable and processes events asynchronously.
You interact with the engine via the REST API or the dashboard; the engine itself is fully managed - you do not operate it.
Friendly Enough Expression Language (FEEL) is the expression language defined by the DMN specification. It is used in decision table cells and literal expressions to evaluate conditions such as loan_amount > 50000 or credit_score in [700..900].
FEEL is side-effect-free, strongly typed, and designed to be readable by business analysts as well as developers.
See also: DMN, Decision Table
A grant is a permission a space owner gives another agent, with noetic.grant or by approving an access request. The rights granted are cut down to the space's defaultRights ceiling, and the grant applies to noetic.fetch at once. noetic.revoke withdraws it, from then on.
See also: Space, Agent Context Network
A process instance is one live or completed execution of a process definition. Each instance has its own isolated set of variables, its own current position in the flow, and its own audit trail.
Instances are created by calling POST /api/v1/process-instances with a bpmnProcessId and an optional variables object; each start costs 1 credit. An instance's state is ACTIVE, COMPLETED, INCIDENT or TERMINATED.
See also: Definition, Variable, Token (BPMN)
A job is a unit of work that the engine creates when a process instance reaches a service task. The engine holds the job in a queue until a worker polls for it, executes the work, and completes or fails it.
Jobs carry the instance's variables as input and return updated variables as output. A job failed with retries left goes straight back to the queue, with no back-off; failed with no retries left, its instance moves to INCIDENT.
Layer 2 is the set of Enterprise Integration Patterns (channels, filters, routers, aggregators, pipelines) in the qubit-core library that Priostack is built on. It is used embedded in Go, through the SDK's Camel runtime.
Layer 2 is not a hosted Priostack feature: nothing on priostack.com runs Layer 2 configurations, and connectors in the Connectors tab are stored but not executed.
The Model Context Protocol is an open protocol through which a model or agent discovers and calls tools over JSON-RPC. Priostack exposes the Agent Context Network as an MCP server at /mcp: initialize, tools/list, noetic.register and noetic.discover need no credential, noetic.connect takes the agent's token, and every other tool takes the sessionId that connect returned.
See also: Agent Context Network
A Petri net is a mathematical model of concurrent systems, consisting of places (states), transitions (events), and tokens (markers that move through places when transitions fire). BPMN's execution semantics are formally grounded in Petri net theory.
Priostack's engine uses an extended Petri net representation internally to verify process correctness (deadlock detection, reachability) and to power the token-level audit trail visible in the dashboard.
See also: Token (BPMN), BPMN, Engine
In BPMN, a process is a sequence of activities, events, and gateways that collectively describe how a piece of work is accomplished from a start event to an end event. Processes can be independent or callable from parent processes as sub-processes.
On Priostack, a "process" in the UI refers to a deployed definition together with all its running and completed instances.
See also: BPMN, Definition, Instance
A receipt is the record of a metered read, returned with the read and readable with noetic.receipt. It lists the operation, the query count, the processed and returned tokens, the audience, and a price in EUR taken from the space owner's price schedule (zero for an unpriced space).
A receipt is informational: its price is not deducted from your Priostack credit balance. Credits are charged only by the hourly meter described under Agent Context Network.
A space is a named container of context objects owned by one agent. A Priostack account holds up to 5 agents and 5 spaces, and each agent account stores up to 500,000 objects. Objects are append-only: storing adds, nothing is updated in place. A space is private until it is published, and its defaultRights set the most any grant on it can give.
See also: Grant, Receipt, Agent Context Network
A token is a conceptual marker that traverses the sequence flows of a BPMN process, indicating where in the flow an instance currently is. When a token reaches a parallel gateway, it splits into multiple tokens; when all tokens converge at a joining gateway, they merge back into one.
Priostack visualises tokens in real time on the process diagram in the instance detail view, making it easy to see exactly which step a running instance is at.
Variables are key-value data attached to a process instance. They are set when the instance is started, updated by service tasks and workers, and read by gateways to determine flow direction. Variables are typed (string, integer, boolean, JSON object).
All variable mutations are recorded in the audit trail, making it possible to replay the exact state of an instance at any point in its history.
A webhook is an HTTP POST that Priostack sends to your URL when an event occurs: deploy.succeeded, deploy.failed, credits.topped_up, credits.low, the mailbox message.* events, or test. Instance and job lifecycle events are not sent.
Create webhooks with POST /api/v1/webhooks or on the Webhooks page. Each webhook receives only the events listed in its events array, and every delivery is signed with X-Priostack-Signature: sha256=<hex>.
A worker is any external service that subscribes to a job type, polls the Priostack engine for jobs, executes the business logic, and reports the result back. Workers can be written in any language that can make HTTP calls.
Priostack provides a Simulate Worker button in the dashboard for testing flows without deploying real worker code.
A workspace groups work and team members inside your Priostack account, for example one per client or project.
Workspaces have no wallet of their own: every workspace draws on the account's single credit balance. A workspace budget cap can be stored with PATCH /api/workspaces/{id}/budget, but it is a label only; it is not enforced, and no workspace ever returns 402.
See also: Credit