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Kong Gateway 2.8 Increases Security and Simplifies API Management.  —Learn More →
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On this page
  • Product, application, component names
    • Generic terms
  • Word choice
    • Bias-free language
    • Software terms
  • See also
Contribution guidelines
  • Contribute to the docs
  • Style guide and contribution guidelines

Word choice and naming

Generally:

  • Use contractions
  • Use simple words and short, concise sentences
  • Avoid non-English words. Most commonly, this means avoiding Latin words and abbreviations.
  • Use bias-free, inclusive language.
  • Capitalize most of Kong’s product, application, and component names as proper names, with some notable exceptions. See the naming table for details.

Product, application, component names

Capitalize the following Kong-specific terms and component names:

Name Description
Kong Konnect Cloud

Konnect Cloud
Use Kong Konnect Cloud for the first mention, Konnect Cloud or simply Konnect after.
Kong Gateway

Gateway
Kong’s API gateway runtime, regardless of packaging or license. This term also refers to the enterprise version.

Use lowercase “gateway” when referring to the general concept of an API gateway. Use uppercase “Gateway” as a shorthand for “Kong Gateway”. When writing about “Kong Gateway”, use “Kong Gateway” for the first mention and “Gateway” after.
Kong Gateway (OSS) Kong’s API gateway runtime, open-source package. Use this name to specifically refer to the open-source package.
Kong Mesh

Mesh
Kong’s service mesh. Use “Kong Mesh” for the first mention, “Mesh” after.
Kuma Kong’s open-source service mesh.

❌  Do not use “Kong Kuma”. This is an open-source project supported by the CNCF and maintained, not owned, by Kong.
Insomnia Kong’s open-source API client.
Dev Portal

Dev Portal, self-managed
Dev Portal, cloud
A module for sharing APIs and their specs with developers, and enabling the developers to create applications based on Gateway or Konnect services.

❌  Do not use “Developer Portal”.
ServiceHub The service catalog in Konnect Cloud.

❌  Do not use “Service Hub”, “Service hub”, or “Servicehub”.
Runtime Manager The runtime management service in Konnect Cloud

❌  Do not use “Runtime manager”.
Vitals Analytics for Gateway.
decK Kong’s CLI tool for managing declarative configuration.

❌  Do not capitalize the first letter, even if the name appears at the start of a sentence.

Generic terms

Don’t capitalize the following generic terms:

  • plugins
  • control plane
  • data plane
  • hybrid mode
  • service
  • route
  • consumer
  • service mesh
  • database

Word choice

Bias-free language

Use gender-neutral and unbiased language.

✅  Use ❌  Don’t use
Denylist, allowlist Blacklist, whitelist
Main branch Master branch
Neutral pronouns (you, they/them) Gendered pronouns (he/his, she/her)

Software terms

✅  Use ❌  Don’t use
Self-managed Self-hosted, on-premise(s)
Free tier Free mode
Plus tier Plus mode, Plus subscription
Enterprise tier Enterprise mode, Enterprise subscription
Cloud Software as a Service/SaaS
cURL curl, CURL
HTTPie httpie, HTTPIE
Unix unix, UNIX
Nginx nginx, NGINX

See also

Follow Kong’s style guide whenever possible. However, you can also refer to other external style guides for specific word choice and substitution examples. We recommend using the Google developer style guide.

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