Glossary

Terms used throughout the Morse protocol and this documentation.

A

Access Policy

A numeric constant stored per revision that defines who can read the payload. Current values: 0 (public), 1 (publisher), 2 (subscription, reserved). Strictly coupled with the encrypted flag: public (0) requires encrypted=false; publisher (1) requires encrypted=true.

B

Blob Mode

Storage mode 0 for collections. Each entry revision stores a BlobRef::Blob(ID) pointing to an independent Walrus Blob object by Sui object ID. Best for growing, frequently-changing collections.

BlobRef

A Move enum stored per revision that abstracts the two Walrus payload reference formats. Variants: Blob(ID) for standalone blobs, QuiltPatch(vector<u8>) for 37-byte quilt patch identifiers.

C

Capability

A Move object that proves authorization to perform a specific action. Morse has two capability types: OwnerCap (admin authority) and PublisherCap (write authority). Capabilities cannot be fabricated; they can only be issued by the protocol.

CMS

Content Management System. Software for creating, organizing, and publishing structured digital content. Morse implements a decentralized, headless CMS protocol where permission management lives on-chain rather than in a centralized backend.

Collection

A named content lane inside a publication. Holds entries in a table keyed by monotonic entry_id values. Has an immutable storage_mode (blob or quilt).

Content Type

A MIME-format string stored per entry revision that describes the payload format (e.g. application/json, text/markdown, image/png). Max 255 characters. Lowercase is recommended for consistency but not enforced on-chain.

D

dCMS

Decentralized Content Management System, the category Morse belongs to. Publication identity, authorization, and state transitions are governed on-chain; payloads are stored off-chain in decentralized storage (Walrus).

Denylist

The revocation model used for PublisherCaps. A Table<ID, bool> on each publication stores IDs of revoked caps. Issuance writes nothing to the table; only revocations write. This optimizes for the common case where revocations never occur.

Draft Head

An Option<u64> pointer in an Entry that tracks the index of the latest draft revision. May be None if no draft has been created. Updated by append_collection_entry_draft_revision.

Dual-head Model

The entry versioning architecture where each entry maintains two independent revision head pointers: draft_head (latest work-in-progress) and public_head (currently published). Enables editorial iteration without disrupting stable reader delivery.

E

Entry

A single content unit within a collection. Holds a name, an immutable revision vector, and two head pointers. Identified by a stable monotonic entry_id within its collection.

Entry ID

A u64 assigned to an entry when added to a collection. Values start at 0 and increment monotonically. IDs are never reused after deletion (stable for external references).

EntryRevision

The Move struct that stores a single revision's data: blob_ref, content_type, encrypted, access_policy, seal_id, and author. Has store, drop abilities. Stored in an entry's revisions vector.

Epoch

A Walrus storage duration unit, roughly one day on testnet (two weeks on mainnet). When uploading a blob, the epochs parameter controls how long the data is available on the Walrus network; expired blobs can be renewed before their deadline. Passed as --epochs <n> in the CLI or epochs: number in the SDK.

Events

On-chain event structs emitted by the Morse contracts during state transitions. All have copy, drop abilities. Includes PublicationCreated, PublicationDeleted, SlugRegistered, SlugReleased, PublisherCapIssued, PublisherCapRevoked, CollectionAdded, and CollectionRemoved. See the Events tables on Publications, Collections, and Entries.

G

gRPC

A high-performance RPC framework used by SuiGrpcClient from @mysten/sui/grpc. The Morse SDK requires gRPC transport for all Sui interactions. Works in modern browsers without a proxy. See SDK Overview → Known limitations.

H

Headless CMS

A CMS architecture that separates content management from presentation. The CMS manages content and metadata; client applications decide how to render it. Content is delivered through APIs. Morse follows this model while decentralizing identity, authorization, and state transitions.

Holder

The address field on a PublisherCap that binds the capability to a specific wallet. Write operations check that tx.sender() == cap.holder. A cap cannot be shared between addresses.

I

Indexer

The off-chain service that listens to on-chain events and builds a read-optimized index of publications, collections, and entries. Currently planned. See How Morse Works → Off-chain services.

M

Monotonic ID

A collection-scoped, auto-incrementing integer assigned to each entry. IDs are never reused after deletion. See Entries → Entry IDs.

Move

The programming language used for smart contracts on the Sui blockchain. Morse's on-chain logic is written in Move.

O

OwnerCap

The admin capability for a publication. Exactly one exists per publication. Grants authority to issue and revoke publisher caps, delete the publication, and transfer ownership. Has key ability only. Transferable via transfer_owner_cap.

P

Publication

The top-level Morse content domain. A shared Sui object that bundles a name, an immutable slug, named collections, and a revocation denylist. Created via new_publication.

PublicationRegistry

A shared singleton Sui object created at package deploy time. Maintains a Table<String, ID> that maps slugs to publication IDs, enforcing global slug uniqueness. Required argument for new_publication and delete_publication.

Public Head

An Option<u64> pointer in an Entry that tracks the index of the currently published revision. What reader-facing clients should read. Updated by publish_collection_entry_from_draft and publish_collection_entry_direct.

PublisherCap

The write capability for a publication. Many can exist per publication. Grants authority to create/delete collections and entries, append drafts, and publish content. Bound to a holder address. Issued by the owner; revocable by the owner.

PTB

Programmable Transaction Block, Sui's composable transaction format. Multiple operations can be combined into a single atomic transaction. The Morse protocol uses pure creation functions that return objects for callers to compose in PTBs.

Policy Tag

A single byte in a Seal identity that identifies which access policy the identity targets. Currently only 0x01 (publisher) is defined. Allows future policy types to coexist within the same publication namespace.

Q

Quilt Mode

Storage mode 1 for collections. Each entry revision stores a 37-byte QuiltPatchId pointing to a patch within a shared Walrus Quilt blob. Best for stable, grouped content sets.

QuiltPatchId

A 37-byte identifier used in quilt mode collections. Layout: quilt_blob_id (32 bytes) || version (1 byte) || start_index (2 bytes) || end_index (2 bytes). Stored as a BlobRef::QuiltPatch(vector<u8>).

R

Revision

An immutable version of an entry at a point in time. Stored in the entry's revisions: vector<EntryRevision>. Each revision records a BlobRef, content type, encryption state, access policy, optional Seal identity, and author address. Revisions are never mutated; edits append new ones.

Revision ID

The index of a revision within an entry's revisions vector. Starts at 0. Returned by all revision-appending functions. Used to reference a specific revision in publish_collection_entry_from_draft.

Revocation

The act of adding a PublisherCap's object ID to a publication's denylist via revoke_publisher_cap. Immediate effect: the next write attempt using the revoked cap will abort. Historical content is unaffected.

S

Seal

Mysten Labs' on-chain access control layer for Walrus blob decryption. Morse integrates via the seal_approve_publisher entry function, which validates that an active publisher cap holder is authorized within a specific publication namespace.

Seal Identity

A byte vector (vector<u8>) that Seal presents to the approval function during decryption. In Morse, the format is: [publication_id (32 bytes)][policy_tag (1 byte)][nonce (variable)]. Scopes decryption approval to a specific publication and policy.

Shared Object

A Sui object accessible to any transaction, not owned by a single address. In Morse, Publication and PublicationRegistry are shared objects. Shared objects enable multi-writer collaboration but require consensus on ordering.

Slug

A short, unique identifier for a publication. Immutable after creation. Constraints: lowercase a-z, digits 0-9, hyphens; max 64 characters; no leading/trailing hyphens. Enforced globally by the PublicationRegistry.

Storage Mode

An immutable property of a collection that determines how entry revision blob references are stored. 0 = blob mode (standalone Walrus blobs), 1 = quilt mode (QuiltPatchId references).

Sui

The Layer 1 blockchain on which Morse contracts are deployed. Sui uses the Move programming language and features an object-centric data model, parallel execution, and programmable transaction blocks.

T

Table

A Sui framework type (sui::table::Table) used by Morse for dynamic key-value storage within on-chain objects. For example, collections store entries in a Table<u64, Entry>.

W

WAL

The utility token of the Walrus decentralized storage network. WAL is used to pay for blob storage and is separate from SUI (the gas token for Sui transactions).

Walrus

MystenLabs' decentralized blob storage network integrated with Sui. Morse stores all content payloads in Walrus; the contracts hold references (BlobRef), not the raw bytes. Walrus is format-agnostic; payload interpretation is the client's responsibility.

Walrus Blob

A Sui object (walrus::blob::Blob) representing a payload stored in the Walrus network. Production Morse write paths require a reference to this object (not just the blob ID) so the contract can verify the blob is deletable.