Glossary
Glossary: Legal Content Operations from A to Z.
Concise, neutral definitions of the core TermShelf terms — from Legal Content Drift through the Public Delivery API to version pinning. Every entry links to the relevant feature or guide page.
- Legal Content Operations
- Legal Content Operations is the ongoing operation of published legal texts: managing them centrally, versioning, approving, publishing precisely, delivering via an API and continuously checking the live version against the approved one. The term is distinct from one-time drafting and describes the durable, traceable operation across websites, apps, languages and markets. TermShelf is built for this lifecycle, not for drafting legal texts.
- Legal Content Drift
- Legal content drift occurs when the version of a legal text visible in production no longer matches the approved version — on websites, in apps, in individual languages or in transactional emails. Causes include relaunches, incorrect caching, copied full texts or stale email templates. Drift is an operational, technical state, not a legal assessment. TermShelf surfaces it as findings via a live reconciliation.
- Public Delivery API
- The Public Delivery API is TermShelf's read-only delivery interface for already-published legal texts. It returns an approved document version as a sanitized HTML fragment, as structured JSON or as a PDF artifact, and supports version pinning, effective_at and ETag caching. Write operations and unpublished drafts are not reachable through it.
- Transactional Legal Text Delivery
- Transactional Legal Text Delivery is the delivery of approved legal texts into transactional systems such as order and contract confirmations, sign-up emails or checkout steps. The content is delivered as embedded HTML, as JSON for your own templates or as a PDF attachment, each tied to a specific published version. This keeps it traceable which version accompanied a transaction.
- Version Pinning
- Version pinning is the targeted request of a specific approved version via the Public Delivery API, for example through the ?version=N parameter. Instead of always serving the currently live version, the API returns exactly the referenced version. If it differs from the live version, it responds with status 409 and names the currently live version. This is the basis for stable references and proof.
- effective_at / as-of-date delivery
- As-of-date delivery via the effective_at parameter returns the legal-text version that was live at a specific point in time — requested as an ISO-8601 date. It is available depending on plan and is relevant when you need not the current version but the one that applied as of a given date, for example for proof scenarios around a contract conclusion.
- ETag & caching
- An ETag is an identifier the Public Delivery API returns with every response, identifying a specific delivered version. Consuming systems can send it back on the next request via If-None-Match; if the content is unchanged, the API responds with 304 Not Modified instead of the full content. Together with Cache-Control this enables an efficient, cache-friendly integration of legal texts.
- Legal text versioning
- Legal text versioning is the controlled management of a legal text's versions across its lifecycle: draft, review, approval and publishing. Every published version is an immutable snapshot with a version number and date. Restorations create new drafts instead of overwriting history. This keeps it traceable which version was approved and live when.
- Immutable snapshot
- An immutable snapshot is the unchangeable point-in-time capture of a legal text created when a version is approved. It carries a version number and a date and is not modified after publication. Later changes are created as new drafts and versions, so the history stays complete. Snapshots are the basis for version pinning, delivery and live reconciliation.
- Published legal-text version
- A published legal-text version is an approved, dated and immutable snapshot of a document with its own version number. It is the version delivered through the Public Delivery API and the one the live reconciliation checks against. Later changes are created as new drafts and versions; the published version itself is not modified.
- HTML fragment
- An HTML fragment is one of the three artifact forms of the Public Delivery API: sanitized HTML of a published legal-text version that can be embedded directly into websites, apps, footers or transactional emails. It contains structured sections with stable keys and metadata such as the document version, without needing to copy full texts.
- PDF artifact
- A PDF artifact is the PDF form of a published legal-text version retrieved through the Public Delivery API. It is suited as an attachment for order, contract or sign-up emails. Because it derives from exactly the approved version, it stays traceable — with the version number stored — which version accompanied a transaction.
- Legal Text Finding / Drift Finding
- A drift finding (legal text finding) is an actionable item that the live reconciliation creates when the version of a legal text visible in production diverges from the approved version. Findings are reported per site, language and market and can be opened, assigned and triaged. This turns drift into a traceable task rather than a chance discovery.
- Site profile
- A site profile models a commercial or functional variant of a site, such as B2C or B2B. It is one of the targets a legal text can be published and retrieved for through the Public Delivery API — alongside site, domain, locale and market. Profiles enable targeted variants without duplicating a document.
- Override
- An override is a targeted deviation from a base document for a specific target — such as a language, market, site profile or brand. Instead of copying entire documents, inherited content blocks are replaced or suppressed only where they actually differ. Shared passages stay in one source and do not drift apart.
- Multi-brand legal text management
- Multi-brand legal text management is the management of legal texts across multiple brands, websites, markets and languages within one shared structure. Workspaces, brands, sites, domains, locales, markets and site profiles model that reality, while variants and overrides represent deviations without duplicating full texts. Tenant-separated workspaces also suit agency setups.
Terms understood — now put them to work.
Bring your legal texts into a structured lifecycle of versioning, delivery and live reconciliation.