# Concepts

The words these docs use, and what each one means in Texa.


## Account

A business on Texa Desk. Everything (inboxes, people, Texa AI's settings, keys, credits) belongs to
one account. The Texa Desk API puts it in the path (`/api/v1/accounts/{account_id}`); the Texa API
knows it from the key.

## Sandbox and live

Every account has two environments for Texa AI:

| | Sandbox | Live |
|---|---|---|
| Key | `texa_test_…` | `texa_live_…` |
| Customers | none: you play them | real |
| Actions | answered by [fixtures](/guides/sandbox), or your staging connectors | your systems |
| Webhooks | sandbox endpoints (`http` allowed) | live endpoints (`https` only) |
| Credits | counted separately as `sandbox_requests` | drawn from your prepaid balance |

The same procedures and knowledge serve both, so what you test is what customers get.

## Inbox and channel

An **inbox** is where one channel's conversations arrive in Texa Desk: a WhatsApp number, an email
address, a website's live chat, a phone line, an API inbox. Your team members belong to inboxes, and
Texa AI is switched on per inbox. Conversations from the Texa API arrive in the **App conversations**
inbox when they are handed over.

## Conversation

One exchange with a customer. There are two kinds of id, because there are two systems:

- **In Texa Desk**, a conversation has a number shown to your team (its *display id*, `#171`), used
  in the Texa Desk API's paths.
- **In the Texa API**, a conversation is `cnv_…`. When a Texa API conversation is handed over to
  Texa Desk, it gets a Desk conversation too.

A Texa API conversation is `active`, with **people** (handed over), or `closed`.

## Customer and contact

- A **contact** is a person in Texa Desk, with a name, phone, email and custom attributes.
- A **customer reference** (`customer_ref`) is *your* id for a person in the Texa API, such as
  `user-1842`. Texa AI remembers a customer across conversations by it.
  [Merge two references](/api-reference/texa-api/customers/two-references-one-person-merge-them) or
  [forget a customer](/guides/customers) at any time.

## Texa AI, procedures and knowledge

- **Knowledge** is what Texa AI answers from: documents, web pages and help centre articles your
  team added and approved in **Texa AI → Knowledge**.
- **Procedures** are your written instructions for one kind of problem ("a failed transfer"), in
  plain words, compiled, checked and approved by a named person. Texa AI follows them step by step.
- **The agent** is Texa AI's name, voice and manner for your business (`GET /v1/agent`).
- **The kill switch** pauses Texa AI for the whole account at once (`GET /v1/kill-switch` tells
  you whether it's paused).

## Action

Something Texa AI asks your systems to do: look up a transfer, cancel an order, issue a refund.
An action has a name, typed inputs and outputs, and rules: whether it changes something, whether
the customer must say yes, whether they must be verified first. Texa AI uses an action only in a step
of an approved procedure. [Actions](/guides/actions)

## Event

Everything that happens in a Texa API conversation is an event: a `reply`, an `action_request`, a
`handover`, a `close`. Events come back in the answer to your request, are all on
`GET /v1/events` in order, and are pushed to your [webhooks](/guides/webhooks).

## Handover

Texa AI passing a conversation to people, with a summary and the facts it established. From then
on it does not reply until people hand the conversation back. [Handing over](/guides/handover)

## Ticket

A customer's request that needs tracking beyond one conversation: a reference (`AUD-1001`), a type,
a state, a promise ("resolved within 14 days"), and every conversation about it. [Tickets](/desk/tickets)

## Credits

Texa Desk is prepaid. Texa AI's replies, actions, voice minutes and API requests draw down your
account's credit balance, the same whether they come through Texa Desk or the API. When it runs
out, the Texa API answers `402`. Top up in Texa Desk under **Texa AI → Credits and billing**.
[Usage and credits](/api-basics/usage)