Glossary

The vocabulary below is the one used throughout the platform, the API and this documentation.

Product and deployment

DK Studio — the web platform. It runs on a server, serves the UI and the REST API, and holds the database. Sometimes called the studio or the platform.

DK Studio Agent — the companion application that runs on the machine under test. It holds credentials, keeps a connection to the studio and executes commands. Sometimes called the agent.

Studio URL — the base URL an agent uses to reach the studio, for example http://localhost:3000. It is the only address an agent ever needs.

Hosted studio — the studio operated by DK Studio. You install nothing on your side except the agents on your benches; the studio, the socket server and the database run on DK Studio's infrastructure. See Deployment modes.

In-house installation — the studio running on infrastructure you control, with your own database and your own agent pool. See Deployment modes.

Deployment mode — which of the two a studio runs in. The mode decides where the processes run and where the data lives; the REST API, the agent protocol, the case model and the reports are the same in both.

Licensing

Licence — a row in agent_licenses that authorises exactly one agent registration. A personal licence is applied for in Personal Center; a lab licence is issued from Admin → Licences.

Licence code — the one-time ticket the agent presents to register. It is spent on that registration and never works again.

Licence type — personal or lab. It decides whether the machine that registers becomes the owner's own machine or part of the shared lab.

Licence status — one of:

Status	Meaning
pending	Issued, not yet claimed by an agent.
consumed	Claimed by a registered agent.
revoked	Permanently invalidated. The agent can no longer register with it.
expired	Past its expiry date.

Edition — the tier a licence key grants: starter, professional, pro or enterprise. Each edition carries a maximum agent count and a feature list. See Setup Wizard.

Demo licence — the built-in key ENT0-DKST-UDIO-2026, which always verifies and grants the enterprise edition.

Agents

Agent id — the identifier the studio assigns to an agent at registration. It is the value the agent sends on every command and heartbeat.

API key — a 32-character alphanumeric secret returned at registration. The agent presents it to authenticate over HTTP.

Agent secret — the credential the agent uses to authenticate over the socket. The studio generates it when registration succeeds and stores it on the agent row.

Registration — the one-time handshake where an agent claims a licence and receives its id, API key and secret. A licence is spent on that registration. Registering again with the agent's own credentials updates the agent in place and increments its registration count.

Connection status — online or offline. Derived from the live socket connection, not from a stored flag, so it reflects reality within a heartbeat interval.

Command — a unit of work sent to an agent: shell, get_system_info, get_serial_ports, open_serial, close_serial, serial_write.

Command status — pending, then in_progress once the agent claims it, then completed. The result carries its own status: success, error or timeout.

Domain

Digital key — the credential that unlocks a vehicle, delivered over NFC or a companion app. DK Studio is built for teams that develop and verify them.

OEM — original equipment manufacturer. The car maker. In this domain an OEM defines a protocol family that its suppliers implement.

Protocol family — one of the protocols DK Studio covers: CCC, ICCE, ICCOA or COT. The first three are public industry standards; COT is DK Studio's own proprietary protocol. See Supported Protocols.

Protocol driver — the part of a family's driver layer that encodes its frames, reads its replies and maps its requirements to bench commands. One per family. The COT driver ships with the platform.

Vehicle model — a specific car model, usually with several hardware variants.

Bench — the test rig in the lab: a PC with a serial or USB connection to a key reader or an ECU.

ECU — electronic control unit. The microcontroller on the other end of the bench.

Serial port — the serial connection to a bench device, opened at a baud rate such as 115200.

Device under test — the reader, ECU, module, phone or rig the agent is attached to; the thing being verified.

Layer under test — one of the three layers of a digital key product that DK Studio covers: vehicle, cloud or mobile. See Overview.

Vehicle layer — the MCU, UWB, NFC and BLE modules, and the digital key controllers, readers and ECUs attached to them.

Cloud layer — the digital key backend: interface performance, key generation and distribution logic, and the certificate chain that binds vehicle, cloud and handset together.

Mobile layer — the system-level wallet car keys on branded phones and smart watches, across the main wallet ecosystems and the vehicle maker's own app.

Wallet — the application on a phone or watch that holds the system-level car key: a platform wallet on a branded handset, or the vehicle maker's own app.

Test case / test suite / test run / execution — the verification hierarchy: a test case is one checkable condition, a suite groups cases, a run executes a suite, and an execution records one case's outcome within a run.

Artifact — a file produced by a run, such as a log or a captured trace.

Environment — a named configuration a run executes against.