Guides

Glossary

Definitions of the terms used across Fingerly: visitor, identification, event, request ID, signal, group, trigger, weight, score, level and more.

The terms these docs, the API and the dashboard use, and what each means precisely.

Identity

Visitor

A device as Fingerly recognises it: a browser, or an app on a phone. A visitor is not a person. Several people can share one device, and one person can use several.

Visitor ID

visitor_id. The stable identifier Fingerly issues for a visitor: twenty letters and digits, scoped to your organization. The same device on another customer's site has a different visitor ID. See visitor identification.

Visitor confidence

visitor_confidence, from 0 to 100. 100 means this exact device was seen before, 85 to 99 that it was recognised after it changed, and 0 that a new visitor ID was issued.

New visitor

visitor_is_new. true the first time your organization sees a visitor.

Identifiable

identifiable. false when a device gave too little to identify anyone. Such a device gets a new visitor ID each time, is still scored, raises fingerprint_suppressed, and costs less.

Requests and events

Identification

One call to an SDK's identify(): the SDK collects signals, the server identifies the visitor, scores the session and stores the result as an event. Production identifications are billed.

Request ID

request_id. The ID of one identification, a UUIDv7. The client sends it to your server, which reads the event with it.

Event

The stored record of an identification: the visitor, the network, the score and the signal groups that fired. Readable with a secret key for 30 days. See reading events.

Tag

tag. Your own string for an identification, such as login or checkout:8412, echoed on the event and in webhooks. Your server compares it to bind an identification to the action it was made for.

State

state. enriched when the identification was fully processed, or unavailable when the network lookup could not run, in which case nothing is scored and nothing is billed.

Deferred report

Signals a browser collects after the initial answer, attached to the same request. Archived with the event; it never changes the visitor, the score or billing.

Verdict

A local, advisory result an SDK computes on the device, such as automation or jailbreak. Useful for the interface, never for decisions. See client-side verdicts.

Risk

Signal

One thing Fingerly detects about a session, such as tor or automation. A signal's name never changes meaning.

Signal group

Signals grouped by what they tell you, such as automation in the bot group. Stored events list their triggers by group, and the dashboard reports by group. See signals.

Trigger

A signal that fired on an identification, listed in triggers with its weight and confidence. In the identify response and visitor.suspect, signal is the individual signal and group its group; on a stored event, signal is the group.

Weight

The points a signal adds to the suspect score when it fires. A whole number you can change, per platform. See risk weights.

Confidence

On a trigger, how strong the evidence for that signal was: low, medium or high. Reported alongside the weight, never multiplied into it.

Suspect score

suspect_score. The sum of the weights of every signal that fired. Not a percentage and not capped. Absent when a request was not scored, which is different from 0. See suspect score.

Threshold

The score at which the level becomes high. 30 by default.

Level

suspect_level. The score compared with the threshold: low below half of it, medium from half, high from the threshold.

Profile

A set of weights, a threshold and weighting modes for one platform. A key's own profile is used if it has one, otherwise your organization's, otherwise the defaults.

Keys and account

Organization

Your account on Fingerly: its members, keys, data, balance and region.

Environment

development, staging or production. Every key belongs to one. Only production is billed. Each environment's events, dashboards and webhooks are kept apart, while visitor IDs are shared across them. Webhooks call production live and the other two test.

Region

Where an organization's visitor data is processed and stored, such as us. Chosen once and written into every key. See regions.

Public key

fly_pk_…. Used by client SDKs to identify visitors. Accepted from browsers only on its allowed origins.

Secret key

fly_sk_…. Used by your backend to read events. Refused from browsers.

Management key

fly_mk_…. Used by your automation to manage keys, webhook endpoints and risk weights through the management API, with the permissions of the admin or developer role.

Proxy key

fly_px_…. Lets a first-party proxy forward identify requests with the visitor's real address. See proxy integrations.

Allowed origin

A scheme, host and optional port a public key is accepted from in browsers, such as https://shop.example.com. Matched exactly.

Idempotency key

The Idempotency-Key header. Sent with every retry of one identify request so it is answered and charged once. See idempotency.

granted, pending or denied. Until it is granted, an SDK collects and sends nothing. See privacy and consent.

Micros

Millionths of a US dollar, the unit of Fingerly-Balance-Micros and billing webhooks. 3000 micros is $0.003.

Webhooks

Webhook endpoint

An HTTPS URL on your server that Fingerly sends events to, listening to live or test traffic. See webhooks.

Envelope

The JSON shape every webhook shares: id, type, version, organization_id, environment, created_at and data.

Signing secret

whsec_…. The per-endpoint secret each delivery is signed with. Verify the signature before you trust a delivery.