Che Glossary

This section provides an overview of the main terms and expressions used throughout Eclipse Che documentation.

Naming

Eclipse Che

A developer platform for the cloud that provides an in-browser editor (IDE). You can enhance Che tools by adding development services, such as language servers, debug adapters, or IDEs packaged as containers.

Visual Studio Code - Open Source

The default editor component of a Che workspace. It is a Che-specific customization of the Visual Studio Code editor. You can enhance Visual Studio Code - Open Source with Visual Studio Code extensions.

Che Workspace

A container-based development environment managed by Eclipse Che. Every Che workspace is defined by a devfile. A Che workspace consists of an editor, runtime and build containers, and other development tools running inside containers.

Terminology

Editor

A web application used as an editor in a workspace.

Plugin

Plugins are services that extend Che workspace capabilities. Che plugins are packaged as containers. Plugins are extensions of an editor or a service running in the container. Both Che plugins and editors are distributed through the Che plugins registry.

Workspace

A container-based development environment managed by Eclipse Che. Every Che workspace is defined by a devfile. A Che workspace consists of an editor, plugins, and runtime containers. Workspace runtime containers can be defined as simple container images or as Kubernetes or OpenShift resources. A Che workspace can be associated with source code projects hosted on a remote CVS server. A Che workspace can contain the definition of one or more commands such as run, build, or debug.

Devfile

A workspace configuration template. Use devfiles to create workspaces in the Dashboard. A devfile includes metadata such as scope, tags, components, description, name, and identification.

Factory

A template that contains the configuration to automate the generation of a new workspace using a factory identifier or a devfile added to the URL of the IDE. Use factories to create replicas of existing workspaces or to automate the provisioning of statically or dynamically defined workspaces.

Project

A source code repository.