Database
Where an app keeps its information permanently, organized so it can be found and updated quickly.
What it is
A database is the app's long-term memory. Customers, orders, messages, settings: anything that should still be there tomorrow lives in a database.
Most app databases organize data into tables (like spreadsheet tabs) with rows and columns. The backend reads and writes them; the frontend never talks to the database directly.
When describing a feature, say what needs to be remembered. "Save each quote with the customer, the line items, and the date sent" tells a builder what the database needs to hold.
How to ask for it
“Keep track of the customers.”
“Store customers in the database with name, email, company, phone, and the date they signed up. Each customer can have many orders, and deleting a customer should keep their past orders for reporting.”
"Keep track" doesn't say what to store or how it relates; naming the database fields and the relationship makes the data model explicit.
You've seen this in
- AYour order history on Amazon
- CContacts saved in a CRM
- SEvery message in a Slack channel