Plain-language definitions for the terms shaping the modern stack. Each entry is short by design.
Design tokens are named variables that store individual design decisions such as a color, a spacing step, a font size, or a shadow. They are authored once in a platform-agnostic format, usually JSON, and transformed into CSS variables, native constants, and other artifacts so every platform consumes the same source of truth.
Islands Architecture is a web rendering pattern where a page is mostly static server-rendered HTML, with small isolated regions of interactive JavaScript (the islands) that hydrate independently on the client. Each island ships only the code it needs, leaving the rest of the page as plain HTML.
WebMCP is a browser API proposal that lets web pages expose JavaScript functions as structured tools to AI agents. Built on top of the Model Context Protocol, it replaces DOM scraping and screenshot-based interaction with explicit navigator.modelContext.registerTool() calls, giving agents named tools with JSON Schema inputs and same-origin scoping by default.