Roles and Types
This page lists the 39 built-in roles and all values of the type setting in System Architecture. For how an element gets its icon, see Element Icon.
Roles
ServerA machine or virtual machine that runs your codecomputeFunctionCode that runs on demand, such as a serverless functioncomputeContainerA container, or a cluster that runs containerscomputeServiceAn app or service, without saying where it runscomputeRegistryStores container images or build packagescomputeDatabaseStores data in tables or documentsdataCacheKeeps data in memory for fast readsdataQueueHolds messages until a worker takes themdataTopicSends each message to every subscriberdataStorageA disk or a file systemdataBucketObject storage, such as S3dataWarehouseStores data for analyticsdataSearchA search engine or a search indexdataLoadBalancerSpreads traffic across serversnetworkProxyPasses requests on to another servernetworkVPNA private connection into a networknetworkGatewayThe entry point for requests into a systemnetworkFirewallAllows or blocks trafficnetworkRouterSends traffic between networksnetworkSecretStores passwords, keys and certificatesnetworkDNSTurns names into addressesnetworkCDNServes content from close to the useredgeInternetThe public internetedgeUserA person who uses the systemclientBrowserA web browserclientMobileA mobile appclientTeamA group of peopleclientCLIA command-line tool, such as gh or kubectlclientMonitoringCollects metrics and shows dashboardsoperationsLoggingCollects and stores logsoperationsAlertingTells people when something goes wrongoperationsSchedulerRuns jobs at set timesoperationsPipelineMoves or changes data, or builds and deploys codeoperationsModelAn AI model the system callsaiAgentA program that uses a model to plan steps and call servicesaiVectorStoreStores embeddings for similarity searchaiMCPAn MCP server that agents callaiConnectorConnects an agent to an outside appaiSkillA packaged capability an agent loadsaiTypes
type takes one of these values, such as type: 'postgres', in any letter case. A card's "also" values give the same icon, such as 'postgresql' for 'postgres'.
airbyteworkflows and data pipelinesairflowworkflows and data pipelinesakamaicdn and edgealgoliasearchalibabacloudcloud providers and hostingalpineoperating systemsandroidmobileanthropicai modelsapacheweb servers, proxies and api gatewaysappai agentsappleoperating systemsargocode hosting and ci/cdawsalso: amazon, ec2cloud providers and hostingazurecloud providers and hostingbackgroundai agentsbigquerydata warehousesbravebrowsersbuildkitecode hosting and ci/cdbunlanguages, runtimes and frameworkscaddyweb servers, proxies and api gatewayscassandradatabasescelerymessaging and task queuescephobject storagechromavector databaseschromebrowserscirclecicode hosting and ci/cdcliai agentsclickhousedatabasescloudflarecdn and edgecockroachdbdatabasesconsulcontainers and orchestrationcontainerdcontainers and orchestrationcouchbasedatabasesdatabricksdata warehousesdatadogmonitoring and loggingdbtworkflows and data pipelinesdebianoperating systemsdeepseekai modelsdenolanguages, runtimes and frameworksdigitaloceanalso: docloud providers and hostingdiscordalerting and chatdockercontainers and orchestrationdotnetlanguages, runtimes and frameworksduckdbdatabasesdynamodbdatabaseselasticalso: elasticsearch, essearchelixirlanguages, runtimes and frameworksenvoyweb servers, proxies and api gatewaysextensionai agentsfastlycdn and edgefirebasedatabasesfirefoxbrowsersfluentdmonitoring and loggingfluttermobileflycloud providers and hostinggcpalso: google, gcloudcloud providers and hostinggcsobject storagegeminiai modelsgithubcode hosting and ci/cdgithubactionsalso: ghacode hosting and ci/cdgitlabcode hosting and ci/cdgmailproductivity appsgolangalso: golanguages, runtimes and frameworksgoogledriveproductivity appsgpuhardwaregrafanamonitoring and logginghaproxyweb servers, proxies and api gatewaysharborartifact registrieshashicorpinfrastructure as code and secretsherokucloud providers and hostinghetznercloud providers and hostinghivedata warehousesideai agentsinfluxdbdatabasesiosmobileistiocontainers and orchestrationjavalanguages, runtimes and frameworksjenkinscode hosting and ci/cdjfrogartifact registriesjiraproductivity appskafkamessaging and task queueskongweb servers, proxies and api gatewayskubernetesalso: k8s, k9s, k8siocontainers and orchestrationlambdaserverlesslinuxoperating systemsllamaai modelslogstashmonitoring and loggingmariadbdatabasesmeilisearchsearchminioobject storagemistralai modelsmlflowartifact registriesmongodbalso: mongodatabasesmysqldatabasesnatsmessaging and task queuesneo4jdatabasesnetlifycloud providers and hostingnewrelicmonitoring and loggingnginxweb servers, proxies and api gatewaysnodejsalso: nodelanguages, runtimes and frameworksnomadcontainers and orchestrationnotionproductivity appsonepasswordalso: 1passwordinfrastructure as code and secretsopenaiai modelsopenrouterweb servers, proxies and api gatewaysopensearchsearchopenshiftcontainers and orchestrationopentelemetryalso: otelmonitoring and loggingopenvpnvpn and network securityopsgeniealerting and chatoraclecloud providers and hostingpagerdutyalerting and chatpfsensevpn and network securitypgvectorvector databasesphplanguages, runtimes and frameworkspineconevector databasesplanetscaledatabasespodmancontainers and orchestrationpostgresalso: postgresql, pg, psqldatabasesprefectworkflows and data pipelinesprometheusmonitoring and loggingpubsubmessaging and task queuespythonlanguages, runtimes and frameworksqdrantvector databasesqwenai modelsrabbitmqalso: mq, amqpmessaging and task queuesrailwaycloud providers and hostingrdsdatabasesredhatoperating systemsredisdatabasesredshiftdata warehousesrendercloud providers and hostingrubylanguages, runtimes and frameworksrustlanguages, runtimes and frameworkss3object storagesafaribrowserssentrymonitoring and loggingslackalerting and chatsnowflakedata warehousessolrsearchspannerdatabasessplunkmonitoring and loggingspringbootlanguages, runtimes and frameworkssqlitedatabasessqsmessaging and task queuesstripepaymentssupabasedatabasestailscalevpn and network securityteamcitycode hosting and ci/cdtemporalworkflows and data pipelinesterraformalso: tfinfrastructure as code and secretstraefikweb servers, proxies and api gatewaystraviscicode hosting and ci/cdubuntuoperating systemsvaultinfrastructure as code and secretsvercelcloud providers and hostingvultrcloud providers and hostingweaviatevector databaseswindowsoperating systemswireguardvpn and network securityworkersserverlesszerotiervpn and network security