| Term | Description | Association |
| Aggregate Program | Specification for a collective behavior that needs to be achieved. | Language |
| Computational Field | A field is a collective structure that maps each device in some portion of the network to locally computed values over time. | Field Calculus |
| Field Calculus | A programming model in which computational fields are first-class entities. | Computational Field |
| VM | A Virtual Machine for the execution of an aggregate program. | Aggregate Program, Round |
| Round | Correspond to a local computation in a device. Create the context, evaluate the aggregate program and share the exports to the neighborhood. | VM |
| Environment | An abstraction for the real world. | Sensor, Context |
| Context | An abstraction for the local computation's input. It contains the neighbors' exports, the local status of the device and the results of the previous round. | Export |
| Export | A tree-like data structure that contains all the information needed for coordinating with neighbors and the output of the computation. | AST |
| Network | A network of heterogeneous devices that act as a collective. | Device |
| Device | A singular entity that executes the aggregate program. Also called: nodes or agents. | neighbor |
| Neighboring | A relation between devices that communicate directly. | Device |
| Sensor | A physical or virtual component that allows the device to interact with the environment. | Environment, Sense |
| Abstract Syntax Tree | A data-oriented representation used by ScaFi to represent the aggregate program structure. | Path, Slot |
| Path | Sequence of slots, corresponding to a branch of the AST. | Abstract Syntax Tree, Slot |
| Slot | A representation for a construct of the language. | Path |
| Language | The collection of basic constructs. | Nbr, Rep, Foldhood, Branch, Exchange |
| Nbr | It observes the value of an expression across neighbors, producing a “field of fields”. | Language |
| Rep | It iteratively updates the value of the input expression at each device using the last computed value. | Language |
| Foldhood | Aggregates the results of the neighbor computation. | Language |
| Branch | Partition the domain into two subspaces that do not interact with each other. | Language |
| Alignment | Two devices are said to be aligned if they have evaluated the same expression and belong to the same domain. |
| Local ID | It is the ID of the local device. | Device, Language |
| Sense | Return the value of a local sensor. | Sensor, Device |
| Exchange | The exchange construct handles neighbor-to-neighbor propagation of partial accumulates. | Language | </tr>
| Share | captures the space-time nature of field computation through observation of neighbors’ values, reduction to a single local value and updating and sharing to neighbors of a local variable | |
</table>