What Terrain is
Terrain answers two questions for one property:
- Where does our data go? The inventory lists every system that touches the property's data (analytics, advertising, consent, chat and so on), what each one writes to visitors' devices, and what your organization says about why it is there.
- What do our numbers mean? The Data Dictionary holds agreed definitions of your measures and fields, with an owner and a version history.
In the Tools launcher the card is labeled Terrain with the line "Map Your Data". The left menu has Dashboard, Inventory, Dictionary, Storage, Flow Map, Gaps, Audit Pack and Settings.
Observed and declared
Every system in the inventory carries two layers that are kept strictly apart:
| Layer | Written by | Holds |
|---|---|---|
| Observed | Scans, never edited by hand | Whether the system is currently detected, where the evidence came from, when it was last seen, how data reaches it, and the storage keys it writes |
| Declared | People, never filled in automatically | Purpose, legal basis, data categories, recipient, transfer region, retention, internal owner and notes |
The gap between the two is the point. A system that was detected but that nobody has accounted for cannot show up in a questionnaire, because a questionnaire only ever has the declared half. If an observed value is wrong, the scan is wrong; Terrain does not let you correct it by hand, because that would hide the problem.
Where the evidence comes from
| Source | What it tells Terrain |
|---|---|
| Pulse | What fired in the browser and what was written to the device (cookies, localStorage, sessionStorage). Pulse is the only source that can say a system fired before consent, because its baseline visit grants no consent |
| Echo | What the property forwards server-side, read from its Echo destinations |
Systems from Pulse show as browser collection; systems from Echo show as server-side. A system with no evidence source is labeled Manual.
If a page says Nothing detected yet, the property has no scan results in Terrain yet. That is different from a property that tracks nothing.
Statuses
Each system has exactly one status. Before Consent is a separate flag, not a status, because a fully documented system can still be firing at the wrong moment.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Documented | Observed, declared, and reviewed within the last 90 days |
| Undeclared | Detected on the property, but nobody has recorded why it is there |
| Review Due | Declared, but not re-confirmed in the last 90 days |
| Not Observed | On the record but not detected in recent scans. Either it was removed, or the scan is not reaching it |
| Dismissed | Marked as known and accepted, with a reason. It stays on the inventory but leaves the Gaps queue |
A system counts as declared once it has both a Purpose Of Processing and a Legal Basis. Saving a declaration stamps today as its review date.
The dashboard
| Tile | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Coverage | Share of observed systems that are documented. Declarations for systems that are not running do not count |
| Undeclared | Detected with no record of why |
| Before Consent | Systems observed sending data before consent was granted |
| Needs Review | Review Due plus Not Observed |
| Unclaimed Storage | Storage keys that no system on the inventory owns |
Below the tiles, Needs Attention lists up to eight open items (click View All or Review Gaps for the full queue), By Category groups systems with their gap counts, and Evidence Provenance shows when evidence was last collected and from which sources.
What Terrain covers
Terrain covers the marketing data layer only: tags running in the browser and events forwarded server-side. It does not see databases, data warehouses, file storage or internal business systems. The Audit Pack is preparation material for your privacy team, not a record of processing and not a compliance filing.
How Terrain feeds Relay and Lens
The Data Dictionary is the shared vocabulary other modules read rather than keep their own copies of.
| Module | What it reads from Terrain |
|---|---|
| Relay | Any dictionary term that lists allowed values becomes a controlled vocabulary on the Relay Taxonomy page, for example the approved values of utm_medium. Relay checks links against those values when they are created. Adding a value is a proposal in Terrain that the term's owner agrees, not an edit in Relay. Open in Terrain on the Taxonomy page leads back to the dictionary |
| Lens | A metric or field in a Lens semantic model can be linked to an agreed Terrain term at a specific version. The term's page then lists the model under Where this is used, and when the term changes, the model shows the new version for review instead of changing on its own. Linking is a label: it never changes a query |
Terrain's filters and rules are a description of what the business means. They never run a query; Lens does.
TagPipes monitors, configures and reports. It does not determine legal compliance and does not provide legal advice. Output is informational and reflects observed state at the time of observation. Confirm any regulatory interpretation with your counsel.