A code passed in by a client application when it calls an API. API
keys identify the application or the Google Cloud project making
the call to the API. See
Why and when to use API keys
for more information on using an API key with your Endpoints API.
Endpoints Frameworks for the App Engine standard environment
consists of tools, libraries, and capabilities that let you generate APIs and
client libraries from an App Engine application. See
About Endpoints Frameworks
for more information.
A software package that contains the libraries, frameworks, and settings.
that an application requires to run. See
What is a container
for more information.
Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is a specification that provides a way
for web applications to access resources on a server in another domain
(technically, in another origin). To learn more about CORS, see the
Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) web docs
and the Fetch Living Standard.
The Extensible Service Proxy (ESP) is an Nginx-based high-performance, scalable proxy
that runs in front of an OpenAPI or gRPC API backend and provides API management
features such as authentication, monitoring, and logging. See
About Endpoints
and
Endpoints: Architectural overview
for more information.
The Extensible Service Proxy V2 (ESPv2) is an Envoy-based
high-performance, scalable proxy that runs in front of an OpenAPI or gRPC API backend and provides API management
features such as authentication, monitoring, and logging. See
About Endpoints
and
Endpoints: Architectural overview
for more information.
Google's authentication service that supports end user sign-in for client
applications by using credentials from popular federated identity providers
such as Google, Facebook, or Twitter. See
Firebase authentication
for more information.
A JSON Web Token (JWT) that contains the OpenID
Connect
fields needed to identify a Google user account or service account, and that
is signed by Google's authentication service, https://accounts.google.com.
A high performance, open source universal RPC framework developed by Google.
In gRPC, a client application can directly call methods on a server application
on a different machine as if it was a local object. See
Cloud Endpoints for gRPC APIs
for information on using gRPC with Endpoints and the
gRPC
website for general information.
JSON Web Token is an open standard access token format for use in HTTP
Authorization headers and URI query parameters. See
Introduction to JSON Web Tokens for general
information.
A command-line interface for running commands against Kubernetes clusters. You
use kubectl when deploying an API for Endpoints on a Kubernetes
or
Google Kubernetes Engine
cluster.
See Overview of kubectl
for more information.
Open source software that lets you automate the deployment, management,
and scaling of containerized applications across clusters of hosts.
See Kubernetes for more information.
The Open API Initiative is an industry-wide effort to
standardize the description of REST APIs. APIs that are described with the
OpenAPI Specification (formerly
the Swagger Specification) can be supported with common
tools that create documentation, automate testing, and generate code for clients
and servers. See
OpenAPI overview
for more information.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-09-04 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThis page serves as a glossary for terms used in Cloud Endpoints documentation, providing brief definitions and links to detailed information.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eCloud Endpoints supports APIs described using both the OpenAPI Specification and gRPC, allowing developers to utilize common tools for documentation, testing, and code generation.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe Extensible Service Proxy (ESP and ESPv2) are high-performance proxies that run in front of APIs, offering management features like authentication, monitoring, and logging.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eContainers, like those managed by Docker and Kubernetes, are software packages that bundle the dependencies required for an application to run.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eAPI keys, JWTs, and Google ID tokens are methods for authenticating users and applications when accessing APIs.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,["# Glossary\n\n[OpenAPI](/endpoints/docs/openapi/glossary \"View this page for the Cloud Endpoints OpenAPI docs\") \\| gRPC\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\nThis page provides brief definitions and links to more information of terms\nthat are used in the Cloud Endpoints documentation.\n\nAPI key\n: A code passed in by a client application when it calls an API. API\n keys identify the application or the Google Cloud project making\n the call to the API. See\n [Why and when to use API keys](/endpoints/docs/openapi/when-why-api-key)\n for more information on using an API key with your Endpoints API.\n\nAuth0\n: A service that lets you define how users authenticate to applications. See\n [Auth0](https://auth0.com) for more information.\n\nCloud Endpoints Frameworks\n: Endpoints Frameworks for the App Engine standard environment\n consists of tools, libraries, and capabilities that let you generate APIs and\n client libraries from an App Engine application. See\n [About Endpoints Frameworks](/endpoints/docs/frameworks/java/about-cloud-endpoints-frameworks)\n for more information.\n\ncontainer\n: A software package that contains the libraries, frameworks, and settings.\n that an application requires to run. See\n [What is a container](https://www.docker.com/what-container)\n for more information.\n\nCORS\n: Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is a specification that provides a way\n for web applications to access resources on a server in another domain\n (technically, in another origin). To learn more about CORS, see the\n [Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) web docs](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS)\n and the [Fetch Living Standard](https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/).\n\nDocker\n: Open source software that lets you automate deploying applications inside\n software containers. See [What is Docker](https://www.docker.com/what-docker)\n for more information.\n\nExtensible Service Proxy\n: The Extensible Service Proxy (ESP) is an Nginx-based high-performance, scalable proxy\n that runs in front of an OpenAPI or gRPC API backend and provides API management\n features such as authentication, monitoring, and logging. See\n [About Endpoints](/endpoints/docs/openapi/about-cloud-endpoints)\n and\n [Endpoints: Architectural overview](/endpoints/docs/openapi/architecture-overview)\n for more information.\n\nExtensible Service Proxy V2\n\n: The Extensible Service Proxy V2 (ESPv2) is an [Envoy](https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/)-based\n high-performance, scalable proxy that runs in front of an OpenAPI or gRPC API backend and provides API management\n features such as authentication, monitoring, and logging. See\n [About Endpoints](/endpoints/docs/openapi/about-cloud-endpoints)\n and\n [Endpoints: Architectural overview](/endpoints/docs/openapi/architecture-overview)\n for more information.\n\n: ESPv2 supports version 2 of the\n [OpenAPI Specification](https://github.com/OAI/OpenAPI-Specification/blob/master/versions/2.0.md) and [gRPC](http://www.grpc.io) Specifications.\n\nFirebase authentication\n\n: Google's authentication service that supports end user sign-in for client\n applications by using credentials from popular federated identity providers\n such as Google, Facebook, or Twitter. See\n [Firebase authentication](https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/)\n for more information.\n\nGoogle ID token\n\n: A JSON Web Token (JWT) that contains the [OpenID\n Connect](https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OpenIDConnect)\n fields needed to identify a Google user account or service account, and that\n is signed by Google's authentication service, `https://accounts.google.com`.\n\ngRPC\n\n: A high performance, open source universal RPC framework developed by Google.\n In gRPC, a client application can directly call methods on a server application\n on a different machine as if it was a local object. See\n [Cloud Endpoints for gRPC APIs](/endpoints/docs/grpc/about-grpc)\n for information on using gRPC with Endpoints and the\n [gRPC](http://www.grpc.io)\n website for general information.\n\nJWT\n\n: JSON Web Token is an open standard access token format for use in HTTP\n Authorization headers and URI query parameters. See\n [Introduction to JSON Web Tokens](https://jwt.io/introduction/) for general\n information.\n\nkubectl\n\n: A command-line interface for running commands against Kubernetes clusters. You\n use `kubectl` when deploying an API for Endpoints on a Kubernetes\n or\n [Google Kubernetes Engine](/kubernetes-engine/docs/clusters)\n cluster.\n See [Overview of `kubectl`](https://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/kubectl-overview/)\n for more information.\n\nKubernetes\n\n: Open source software that lets you automate the deployment, management,\n and scaling of containerized applications across clusters of hosts.\n See [Kubernetes](https://kubernetes.io/) for more information.\n\nNGINX\n\n: An open source, high-performance HTTP server and service proxy that\n ESP is based on. See the\n [NGINX Wiki](https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/)\n for more information. For information on ESP, see\n [About Cloud Endpoints](/endpoints/docs/openapi/about-cloud-endpoints)\n and [Endpoints: Architectural overview](/endpoints/docs/openapi/architecture-overview).\n\nOpenAPI\n\n: The [Open API Initiative](http://openapis.org) is an industry-wide effort to\n standardize the description of REST APIs. APIs that are described with the\n [OpenAPI Specification](https://github.com/OAI/OpenAPI-Specification) (formerly\n the [Swagger Specification](http://swagger.io)) can be supported with common\n tools that create documentation, automate testing, and generate code for clients\n and servers. See\n [OpenAPI overview](/endpoints/docs/openapi/openapi-overview)\n for more information.\n\nOpenAPI document\n\n: A configuration file in either YAML or JSON format that you use to describe\n your API.\n\nsurface\n\n: The public interface of an API. An API's surface consists of the methods\n as well as the parameters and return types used in the methods."]]
