Terminology

The reference below serves as a reference for the terms used throughout the guides and other pages.

Term	Description
Viash	A script code wrapper for building modular software components that serve as building blocks to develop (Nextflow) data pipelines.
Component	At minimum, the combination of a script and a config file. This can also include any needed resources and unit tests.
Viash config	A YAML based file that holds all of the parameters needed to create a component.
Resources	Tools, helper scripts, templates and other files the component depends on to work.
Unit test	A small block of code to test a component.
Build target	An executable or a VDSL3 module that’s generated by Viash.
(VDSL3) Module	A Nextflow module generated by Viash.
(Viash) Executable	An executable script generated for the Native or Docker platform.
(Docker) Image	A standard unit of software that packages up the OS, code and its dependencies so the application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another.
(Docker) Container	An instance of a Docker image.
Platform	The platform(s) targeted by a component. We currently support Native, Docker and Nextflow.