Blue Dots
The platform and programme: open-source software that helps people and organisations near each other, in the same district, find each other. It runs several domains, each shown as a colour of blue dot.
Glossary
These words mean the same thing in the product, in these docs and in the code.
Domain model
Section titled “Domain model”Blue dot (also: signal)
A short listing from a person or organisation that says what they need or offer, for example a young person looking for work, or a student looking for a tutor. On a map app, you are the blue dot; a listing shows a person, organisation or service where they are, so people nearby can find them. See the introduction. Stored as an item. Signal is the same thing, and the name the software uses.
Domain (code: network)
A sector, such as jobs, education, disability or tourism, and its set of rules, written in a network.json schema: the participant types, the forms and the actions. The code calls a domain a network. See the domains today.
Blue Dot, Yellow Dot, …
A colour names one domain. Blue Dot (blue_dot) is the jobs domain; Yellow Dot is education, Purple Dot is for persons with disabilities, Orange Dot is tourism. The generic word for a listing in any domain is “a blue dot”.
Participant type (code: domain)
A role inside a domain, for example seeker and provider in the jobs domain, or student in the education domain. The code calls these domains: they are listed in the domains field of network.json, and an instance serves one or more of them via SERVED_DOMAINS.
Minimum standard
Instance
One running copy of the Signals API, serving the participant types it is configured for.
Item
A versioned, schema-typed record. item_type is a schema identifier such as profile_1.0, never freeform.
Action
An interaction between items.
Event
The structured result of an action.
Seeker / Provider
The person who needs something and the person or organisation who offers it. In the jobs domain: a job seeker and a local employer. In the disability domain: a person looking for a device or service, and an organisation that provides it.
Service Provider
In the jobs domain, an organisation that offers support to job seekers — training, counselling, assessment or placement help. A third participant type, service_provider, in the deployed pilot schemas (the example schema has only seeker and provider).
Practitioner
In the tourism domain, a person or business that lists what they offer: a homestay owner, an artisan, a guide or a performer.
Verified
The state a profile reaches after a person from the adaptor or aggregator reviews and confirms it. This is the only step in the lifecycle that a person must do by hand.
Assisted route
Onboarding where the adaptor or field team brings a participant in on their behalf.
Self route
Onboarding where the participant starts the process themselves.
Intake method
How data is collected on the assisted route: offline camp, bulk upload, outbound campaign, or inbound QR campaign.
AI Voice Agent
A phone-call channel, in the caller’s own language, for completing a profile. It is the main way people sign up by themselves. Its prompts are published as DPGs.
Web app
The self-serve web app built on the Signals DPG, for participants who prefer typing to speaking. Each domain shows it with its own name and colours.
MSME (a.k.a. SMB)
Micro, small and medium enterprise — for example a kirana shop or a wholesaler (the Brown Dot idea, possible), or an employer in the jobs domain. These docs use MSME, matching the Indian statutory term. SMB means the same thing and is kept only in the Brown Dot sector naming.
Platform
Section titled “Platform”Signals DPG
The backend that stores items and matches them across instances.
Aggregator DPG
The aggregator-facing application for onboarding participants and bulk-creating their signals.
Aggregator
A local organisation that signs participants up and checks their details — for example a skilling centre, a school, a disability organisation, a tourism body, a self-help group or a government department. Scoped by aggregator_id, which is never trusted from the client.
Coordinator
A person who works for an aggregator and onboards participants. Coordinators join an aggregator by invitation only.
Adaptor (also: adopter, anchor adopter)
The organisation that deploys and extends Blue Dots for a district, state or sector. These docs use adaptor; adopter and anchor adopter mean the same role.
Brand
The name, logo and colours a deployment shows to users. A brand sits on top of a domain and does not change its rules. It is set in a brand.json next to the domain’s network.json.
Technical
Section titled “Technical”item_type
Schema identifier for an item (e.g. profile_1.0).
item_instance_url / item_schema_url
Backend-generated URLs for an item’s location and schema. Never set by clients.
Instance-local fetch
GET /api/v1/item/fetch — reads “my own items” with a brief cache.
Inter-instance fetch
GET /api/v1/network/item/fetch — count-first discovery across peers, merged and cached.
Service token
A Keycloak client-credentials token used by an integrating DPG to call Signals, sent with an acting-org header. The client id equals the organisation’s slug.
Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- Core Concepts — the same vocabulary in context.
- The lifecycle — the terms in the order a participant meets them.