Core Concepts

Kaiten models the lifecycle of managed SaaS products. Understanding the core entities and their relationships is key to using the platform effectively.

Domain Model Overview

Organization (your SaaS company)
├── Customer (your end client)
│   └── Instance (a deployment of your product)
│       ├── License (commercial plan: Starter, Pro, Enterprise)
│       │   └── Entitlement (quota, feature, or config value)
│       │       └── Usage (current consumption)
│       ├── Feature Flags (runtime feature control)
│       └── Deployment Zone (logical execution environment)
│           └── Release → Component (versioned bundles)

Key Principles

Principle	Description
Organization isolation	All data is scoped to an organization. Queries always filter by `organization_id`.
Slug-based addressing	Every entity has a unique `slug` per organization — used in API paths and UI navigation.
Event-driven	All mutations emit domain events via a transactional outbox, delivered to webhooks via Svix.
Dual authentication	Human users (JWT via IdP) and machine users (API tokens `ksh_*`) coexist with the same scope model.