Social LiveDocumentationPLATFORM DOCS

Glossary

Every Social Live term in one place -for business, product, design, QA, and engineering.

Last updated Thu Jul 16 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

TL;DR -A shared dictionary. If a word in these docs is unfamiliar, it's defined here.

Who this is for -Everyone. Business partners, designers, QA, and new developers should all be able to speak the same language.

Terms are grouped by theme. Most link to the page where the concept is explained in full.

People & roles

Host -The person broadcasting a live room. Publishes audio and video, runs the room, earns diamonds from gifts. See Live rooms.

Guest -A viewer the host has invited "on stage." Can publish their own audio (and optionally video) and be gifted directly.

Viewer -Someone watching a live room. Can chat, send gifts, and request to become a guest, but doesn't broadcast.

Audience -All the viewers in a room, collectively.

Agency -A talent company that recruits and manages a roster of hosts and takes a share of their earnings (planned). See Agencies.

Moderator / Operator -Staff who keep the platform safe and run operations, mostly through the admin portal.

Money & economy

Coins -The virtual currency viewers buy with real money (via in-app purchase). Think arcade tokens. 100 coins ≈ $1. Spent on gifts. See Economy.

Bonus coins -Coins given away as promos or from converting diamonds. They spend on gifts like normal coins but never earn a host any diamonds -this closes a money-extraction loophole.

Diamonds -A host's earnings, credited when they receive gifts. A host keeps 25% of a gift's value as diamonds. Diamonds can be cashed out for real money or converted (at a loss) into bonus coins. Stored internally as micros (millionths) so fractional amounts stay exact.

Gift -A virtual item (rose, rocket, crown…) a viewer sends a host or guest during a live. Costs coins; triggers an on-screen animation; credits the recipient diamonds. See Gifting.

IAP (In-App Purchase) -Buying coins through Apple's or Google's store. The store handles the payment; the backend verifies it before crediting coins. See In-app purchases.

Ledger -The append-only record of every balance movement. Every coin or diamond change writes a LedgerTransaction row, so the money is always auditable and corrections are new rows (never edits).

Settlement / hold -The waiting period (default 72 hours) before earned diamonds become withdrawable -a window to absorb refunds and chargebacks.

Withdrawal -A host cashing out settled diamonds as real money. Minimum 5,000 diamonds ($25). See Withdrawals.

Idempotency key -A unique tag on each money action so that a retry or a double-tap can never charge or credit twice.

Live rooms

Live room -A broadcast session: one host, many viewers, real-time chat and gifts. Can be video (live) or audio-only (voice).

Audio party room -An audio-only room where members occupy "seats" instead of a video stage. See Audio party rooms.

Stage -The on-screen area where the host and guests appear.

PK Battle -A head-to-head competition between two hosts where gift value decides the score. "PK" = player-kill, borrowed from gaming. See PK battle economy.

Grace window -A short timer (5 minutes) that keeps a room alive if the host briefly disconnects, so a flaky connection doesn't kill the stream.

Entrance banner -The animated "{name} joined" ribbon shown when a higher-level user enters a room.

Technical terms

SFU (Selective Forwarding Unit) {#sfu} -A media server that receives one broadcaster's video and relays it out to many viewers, so the host only uploads once no matter how large the audience. Social Live uses mediasoup. See Media & SFU.

WebRTC -The browser/mobile standard for real-time audio and video. Carries the actual live media between the app and the SFU.

Socket.IO / gateway -The realtime channel (a long-lived WebSocket) used for chat, room events, presence, and media signaling. A "gateway" is a backend component that handles one category of these events.

REST API -The request/response HTTP interface (/api/*) used for everything that isn't realtime: login, wallet, discovery, and so on.

JWT (access / refresh token) -The credentials proving who a user is. A short-lived access token authorizes requests; a longer-lived refresh token gets a new access token without re-login. See Tokens & devices.

OTP (One-Time Password) -The short code texted or emailed during login to verify a phone number or email. See Authentication.

Prisma -The tool the backend uses to talk to the PostgreSQL database (queries, schema, migrations).

NestJS -The framework the backend is built on.

Flutter / Dart -The framework and language the mobile app is built with.

Riverpod -The mobile app's state-management and dependency-injection system.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) -The single rented server that runs the whole production system. See Infrastructure.

Container (Docker) -A self-contained package of one program plus everything it needs to run. Social Live runs each surface (backend, admin, docs, simulator) as its own container.

Reverse proxy (nginx) -The front door on the server that receives all web traffic, handles HTTPS, and routes each request to the right container.

RTDN / Server Notifications -Real-time messages from Google Play / Apple telling the backend about refunds and purchase changes. See Refunds.