Glossary

Key terms used across the Reast platform.

Platform Terms

Term	Description
Reast	A packaged interactive story — the file format (.rea / .reast) and the content it contains.
Rea	The markup language used to write interactive stories.
Story	A complete interactive narrative written in Rea, published on the platform.
Chapter	A top-level section of a story, defined by a # heading in Rea.
Scene	A subsection within a chapter, defined by ## or deeper headings.
Choice	A decision point where the reader selects from options that affect the narrative.
Command	A {keyword} instruction in Rea that controls logic, media, or behavior.
Variable	A named value ({set domain.name = value}) whose domain — part., story., shared. — decides how long it lives.
Reader	A person consuming/playing an interactive story.
Account	Your login. One account, one person — and several public identities if you want them.
Identity	A public face of your account: its own name, address, picture and description. Reast does not connect one identity to another.
Member page	The identity you set up quests, join groups and write reviews under. It never shows your author pages.
Author page	An identity you publish stories under — a pen name. You may hold up to three.
Blogger page	An identity you publish blog posts under, meant to be a public, promotable name.
Player	The runtime component that renders and executes Rea stories in the browser.
Shelf	A reader's personal collection of saved/bookmarked stories.
Reading group	Multiple readers experiencing the same story together with synchronized decisions.
Role	A character assignment in cooperative reading — each reader takes a different role.
Quest	A coordinated reading event. Whoever sets one up runs it under their member page — anyone can.
Progress	The reader's current position and state within a story (auto-saved).
Bookmark	A named save point within a story that the reader can return to.

Story Tiers

Term	Description
Free story	A story available to all readers without payment.
Premium story	A story that requires a platform subscription to access.
Paid story	A story with a one-time purchase price set by the author.

Technical Terms

Term	Description
Parser	The component that reads Rea source text and produces a structured document tree.
Runtime	The execution engine that processes commands, manages state, and drives the narrative.
Renderer	The component that converts parsed Rea content into visible HTML/UI elements.
Web Component	The <reast-engine> custom element that can embed stories on any website.
Offline mode	The ability to read downloaded stories without an internet connection.
Snapshot	A serialized capture of the reader's complete state at a point in time.
Slug	A URL-friendly identifier for a story (e.g., the-lantern-of-arath).
TUI	Text-based Unique Identifier — a short, human-readable ID using a safe character set.