Glossary

GiftWrapt’s docs use a handful of overlapping terms - “Recipient” and “Owner” mean the same thing most of the time, except when they don’t. This page is the canonical reference. When terminology elsewhere surprises you, check back here.

People

Term	Definition	Commonly overlaps with
Recipient	The person a gift is for. The protected party in spoiler protection - they don’t see claims until reveal.	The Owner, except on dependent lists where the Recipient is the Dependent and the Owner is the Guardian.
Owner	The user who created the list. Manages items and triggers reveal.	The Recipient, except on dependent lists (see above).
Gifter	A user who claims an item on someone else’s list.	A Co-Gifter is a Gifter who shares credit on someone else’s claim.
Co-Gifter	An additional user listed on someone else’s claim. Shares gift credit but doesn’t own the underlying purchase.	The Primary Gifter is the user who created the claim. Only they get orphan-claim alerts.
Guardian	A user with full view + edit access to a Child’s or Dependent’s lists. The strongest relationship grant.	On a dependent list, the Guardian is also the Owner. They are not the Recipient.
Dependent	A non-user gift recipient (pet, baby, account-less family member). Has no login; managed by their Guardians.	The Recipient and Subject of dependent-subject lists. Never an Owner.
Partner	A user linked symmetrically to another user. Shares gift credit on every claim, both directions.	Not a permission - Partners need normal access (public list, Editor grant, etc.) to actually see things.
Editor	A user with an explicit per-list grant to add / edit / delete items on one specific list.	A Gifter on every other list. The Editor grant is scoped to the one list.
Restricted Viewer	A user marked as Restricted by an Owner. Sees public lists but with a filtered item view (other people’s claims are hidden).	Still counts as a Gifter when they claim items.
Child (role)	A user account with the Child role. Can’t be a Partner, can’t be a Guardian, can’t create gift-ideas lists, can’t be an Editor.	Always paired with one or more Guardians.
Admin	A user with access to the admin panel. Tunes deployment-wide settings (list types, archive offsets, email toggles, etc.).	Has no per-item override - Admins can’t force a reveal any more than any other user.

Recipient vs. Owner: The Trap

The most common terminology trip is assuming Recipient and Owner are interchangeable. They almost always are - but the exception is load-bearing:

On adult lists and child-owned lists, the Recipient is the Owner.
On dependent-subject lists, the Recipient is the Dependent, and the Owner is one of the Dependent’s Guardians.

When a doc says “the Recipient archives an item,” read it as “whoever the gift is for, or someone acting on their behalf with edit access.” When a doc says “the Owner,” it means the user who created the list - which on a dependent list is the Guardian, not the Dependent.

Child vs. Dependent vs. User

Three “people” concepts, distinguished by whether there’s a login:

	Has an account?	Manages own lists?	Typical use
User	✓	✓	An adult family member or friend
Child (role)	✓	with help	A kid old enough to have a login but young enough that a Guardian helps manage things
Dependent	✗	✗	A pet, a baby, or anyone who shouldn’t have an account

See Dependents for the full split.

Concepts

Term	Definition
Claim	A record that says “I’m getting this for them.” Visible to other Gifters immediately; hidden from the Recipient until reveal.
Reveal	Making a claim visible to the Recipient. The Recipient-side word for “the item got archived.”
Archive	Marking an item as archived. The item-side word for the same event. “Archive an item” and “reveal an item” describe the same action from different angles.
Auto-Archive	The scheduled job that archives items per list type (N days after the Recipient’s birthday, Christmas, or the list’s configured holiday).
Force-Archive	What happens when a list with active claims is deleted: the list is archived instead of removed, to preserve gift history. Not a separate user action.
Add-On	An extra gift a Gifter volunteered that wasn’t on the Recipient’s list. Surfaces on Received gifts after reveal.
Subject	The Recipient of a dependent-subject list. Distinct from the Owner (the Guardian who created it).
Pending Deletion	State of an item the Recipient deleted while it had active claims. Gifters get an alert; the item resolves through the orphan-claim flow, not the reveal flow.
Orphaned Claim	A claim whose underlying item was deleted by the Recipient. Gifters acknowledge to clear it, or the auto-cleanup job resolves it on the list’s event date.
Gift Credit	Who gets attributed for a given gift. Follows both Partners and Co-Gifters symmetrically.
Gift-Ideas List	A private list of things to buy for someone else. Always private, never publicly listed, excluded from every “lists I can shop from” feed.

Permissions Overview The access-level matrix and how relationships interact.

Claims and Reveal The recipient-driven reveal flow in detail.

Privacy Spoiler protections and per-user access levels.

Dependents Where 'Recipient' and 'Owner' diverge.