Glossary
Short definitions of the terms that have a specific meaning in Space Works. For how they fit together, read Concepts.
Access status: Every user’s standing: active, restricted or suspended. Only active users can borrow or use
staff tools. Restricting someone does not delete anything.
Accountability record: An immutable record created when a return reports items as damaged or missing. It ties the loss to the borrower, and the request ends as closed with issue once every item is accounted for.
Action: One permission from a fixed list, such as accept_request, issue_request, edit_inventory or
view_audit. Roles are bundles of actions. See Roles and permissions.
API client: A registered integration that calls the Space Works API with its own credentials and scopes. See API clients.
Area: A bundle of related modules and features that the installer asks about with one yes/no question. There are eight: Inventory & lending, Machines, Events, Bookings, Membership, Online payments, Reports and Chat alerts. Areas are a convenience on top of modules, not a separate switch.
Asset: One individually tracked unit of a product, usually with its own QR code and serial number. An asset has a status: available, reserved, issued, damaged, lost, retired or maintenance.
Audit log: The append-only record of every state-changing action: who, what, when and in which makerspace. Entries are never edited or deleted.
Box: A physical container, such as a bin, kit case or shelf, with its own QR code. Boxes can nest inside other boxes and can carry a kit checklist. Issuing hardware from a reviewed request requires a box QR scan.
Capability: See Feature.
Charge: An amount someone owes the makerspace, for example a loan deposit, a late fee, a machine job, a booking, an event ticket or membership dues. Charges are recorded whether or not online payments are set up, and can be settled offline with a manual settlement.
Closed with issue: The final request state when every item is accounted for but at least one was damaged or missing.
The other final states are returned and rejected.
Control plane: The Django-based operator screen at /control/, for platform-wide settings and superadmin
operations. Only active superadmins can use it, and it is not served on the public website port.
Core module: One of the six modules every makerspace always has: public_inventory, request_workflow,
staff_admin, evidence_uploads, qr_management and scanner. They cannot be uninstalled because
the handover rules depend on them.
Custom role: A role a makerspace creates itself, with whatever actions it needs, alongside the four default roles.
Deployment: One installation of Space Works, which can host many makerspaces.
Direct handout: Staff handing an item to someone with no prior reviewed request. It still needs uploaded evidence and an eligible scanned tool, and is recorded like any other loan.
Edition: What a whole deployment is for, set with SPACEWORKS_EDITION: makerspace (default), events,
bookings or organization. An edition hides public surfaces it does not need; it never removes
data. See Concepts.
Evidence photo: A photo taken when an item is issued or returned. Stored in a private bucket, never public, and immutable once attached. The image file may expire under the retention policy while its record stays. See Evidence retention.
Feature: A switch inside a module, finer-grained than the module itself, such as inventory.self_checkout,
loans.renewals or events.offline_checkin. A feature only works when its parent module is
installed. Space Managers can turn features on and off. Also called a capability.
Handover role: A custom role for front-desk staff, holding the handout actions: issue accepted requests, make direct handouts, process returns and upload evidence. There is no built-in Guest Admin role.
Inventory Manager: A default role that covers the full hardware lifecycle but not printing, staff or makerspace settings.
Kiosk: A scanner and handover station, usually a shared device at the desk. A station PIN opens it, and
every handover is attributed to the signed-in staff operator. Enabled with the inventory.kiosk
feature. See Kiosk.
Machine Manager: A default role that manages machines, limited to the machine types the role is linked to.
Makerspace: A tenant of a deployment. It owns its inventory, public URL, staff, roles, notification channels,
QR codes and audit log, and is isolated from other makerspaces. Public pages live at /m/<slug>.
Manual settlement: The receipt recorded when staff mark a charge as paid offline. It records the method (cash, UPI, bank transfer, card machine, cheque or other), a reference and the date received. Settlements are append-only; corrections are added as new entries.
Member: A person who belongs to a makerspace’s community, holding the protected Member role, which grants no staff actions.
Member accounts: The module that lets people sign themselves up and sign in as members (password, Google, Apple or phone). Staff sign-in never depends on it.
Module: A part of Space Works that each makerspace can install or uninstall, such as events, bookings,
machines or reports. There are 34. Uninstalling hides a module and keeps its data. See
Modules.
Organization: A network, university or chain linked to several makerspaces, with a public profile at /o/<slug>.
Organization grants give people actions in linked spaces, never a staff identity there. See
Organizations.
Payments: The optional module for taking money online through Stripe or Razorpay. Recording what people owe does not need it. See Payments.
Product: A kind of item in the catalogue, with a total quantity. It may be tracked as a count or as individual assets.
Public availability mode: How much of a product’s availability the public catalogue shows: exact_count, status_only or
hidden. Exact counts also need show_public_count turned on.
Purge: Permanently deleting an uninstalled module’s data for one makerspace. Superadmin only, separate from uninstalling, and cannot be undone.
QR code: A printed code that points at a box, product, asset or member card. Each code belongs to one makerspace. Codes can be revoked, and every scan is kept as an immutable record.
Request: A borrow request for hardware. It moves through draft, pending_approval, then rejected or
accepted, then issued, then partially_returned, returned or closed_with_issue. See
Loans.
Role: A named, editable bundle of actions inside one makerspace. Each makerspace starts with Space Manager, Inventory Manager, Machine Manager and Member, and can add custom roles.
Self-checkout: Members checking eligible QR-tagged tools out and back in themselves, with photo evidence. Enabled
per makerspace with the inventory.self_checkout feature and per product.
Single box: Running the whole application as one container beside PostgreSQL and object storage, for a small server. See Single box.
Slug: The short, URL-friendly name of a makerspace, as in /m/riverside-makerspace.
Space Manager: The default role that runs a makerspace day to day, with nearly every action in that space.
Space pack: A JSON export of a makerspace’s configuration, such as inventory definitions, booking rules and
custom roles, that can be imported into another makerspace. It copies configuration only, never
history, and is not a backup. Enabled with the packs.import feature.
Staff console: The React app at /admin where staff and the superadmin do day-to-day work.
Superadmin: The operator of a deployment. Can create makerspaces, install modules and use the control plane. A makerspace can switch off superadmin access to itself.
Tenant: Another word for a makerspace in the multi-tenant sense.
Tombstone: Removing an app’s code surfaces (routes, admin screens, API docs) from a whole deployment with the
TOMBSTONED_APPS setting, while keeping its database tables and data. Used when no makerspace on
the deployment will ever use that app.
Walk-in: A person record created at the front desk for someone without an account: a name and optionally an email and phone, with no password and no way to sign in. Enough to lend them a tool or register them for an event while keeping the handover attributable.