Terminology
BRMS & decision automation glossary
Plain definitions for BAL, decision tables, ruleflows, WASM bundles, and related BRMS terms—so procurement, architects, and analysts share the same language.
BAL 1.0 (Business Action Language)
A human-readable controlled natural language syntax for defining business logic rules without programming language overhead.
BAL 1.0 lets analysts write structured sentences such as 'if the credit score of the applicant is less than 600 then reject the loan application'. In DecisionManager the store of record is the JSON decision definition (action rules / tables / ruleflow); Studio and Manager offer BAL phrasing assist against the bound BOM/JSON vocabulary (manager bal/*). There is no product path that compiles BAL text directly into WebAssembly, and no Java XOM / `.jar` classpath on the Live object model.
Decision Table
A tabular representation of complex conditional logic mapping combinations of input conditions to specific output actions.
Decision tables evaluate multiple input variables simultaneously across rows. DecisionManager compiles tables on a single-pass path with equality indexes and residual_rules meters (not a RetePlus product). The Manager toolbar Optimize is a residual local priority sort only — not a server coverage/redundancy rewrite or continuous auto-optimizer. Edge .dmb / wasm packaging is an adjacent Partial path, not a claim that every table ships as WASM jump-table bytecode.
BRMS (Business Rules Management System)
A software application used to define, deploy, execute, and govern operational business decision logic separately from core application code.
BRMS platforms decouple business rules from microservice deployments, enabling business stakeholders to update policy logic without code rewrites, recompilations, or CI/CD redeployments.
WASM Decision Bundle
A self-contained, hash-verified decision package for edge / embed execute (published fixture class ~947 bytes) that can run without a database; latency is reported under documented methods (e.g. ~3.4 ms for 2 MB / 500 candidates end-to-end), not freestanding sub-2 ms averages. Integrity is content_hash (sha256); cryptographic signing is residual.
Live path in consoles remains Manager → Decision Server single-pass execute with equality indexes, residual_rules, hit policies, and step budget. Edge packaging: a hash-verified decisionmanager.bundle.v1 (.dmb) plus a verified ~1.5 MB wasm32 / native engine that can run in Lambda, Workers, Cloud Run, or in-process under the operator's account — not a claim that every ruleset is WASM jump-table bytecode, and not a multi-region DecisionManager mesh. Ed25519/sigstore product signing and RetePlus / Working Memory remain Residual.
Rete Algorithm
A pattern-matching algorithm for forward-chaining inference (working memory, agenda, re-activation) used in classic production systems such as IBM ODM RetePlus and Drools/Phreak.
RetePlus / Working Memory / Agenda multi-algo products are Residual in DecisionManager — never Live. The Live engine is a single-pass matcher over one JSON decision context with compiled equality indexes, residual_rules metering, hit policies, and a step budget. There is no Rete network, assert/retract Working Memory, agenda re-activation loop, or Sequential/Fastpath mode picker. Edge .dmb / wasm packaging is an adjacent Partial delivery path, not a Rete substitute and not an AST-to-WASM invent of the primary engine.
Decision Warehouse
An immutable audit store recording every decision execution payload, evaluation trace, ruleset version hash, and timestamp.
Buyers use decision provenance in financial and healthcare audit programs (including those framed around SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA controls). The Decision Warehouse records cryptographic provenance for why an automated decision was rendered. DecisionManager holds no formal certification today — see /security. Live warehouse surfaces store input, output, and matched[] fire order — not a Rete Working Memory snapshot stream, and not an OpenSearch / ClickHouse product index.
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