Words we use
The dashboard and these docs use a handful of words that look
interchangeable but aren't — and one word, tier, that means two different
things depending on where you're standing. Here's what each one means, and
one pair of buttons worth reading about twice.
| Term | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| Assistant (or bot) | The thing you chat with. The deploy wizard asks you to name your assistant; Telegram calls the same thing a bot, because that's their word for it — it's not a different thing. |
| Instance | The private server your assistant runs on. When the dashboard says instance — instance statuses, Stop Instance, the instance tabs — it means the server, not the assistant. |
| Channel | Where you chat with your assistant — currently Telegram. You pick it during deploy, and it's managed from the Channels tab. |
| Provider | Who supplies the AI your assistant thinks with — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and so on. Choosing Niva AI credits means we supply it, and you don't need an account anywhere else. |
| API key | A credential you create on a provider's own site and paste into the deploy wizard or the Providers tab. It pays the provider per use, from your account with them. |
| Subscription credential | Using a plan you already pay for — ChatGPT, or Claude Pro/Max — as the credential instead of an API key. You usually connect it by signing in and approving a short code rather than pasting anything. |
| Niva AI credits | AI with nothing to bring: you choose a monthly credit amount and it's billed with your instance as one payment on one invoice. The spending cap is enforced by the AI provider itself, so your assistant can never use more than you've bought. |
| Top-up | A one-off extra credit purchase from the Providers tab, charged immediately to your card. It doesn't change your monthly credit amount, and there is never an automatic recharge. |
| Tier (instance plan) | The plan your instance runs on: Minimal, Standard or Developer. This is what the deploy wizard's Choose Instance Tier step means — it sets server size and features like SSH, not how clever the AI is. |
| Tier (credits model) | For credit customers: how capable the AI is — Everyday, Smarter or Most capable, under How clever should it be? on the Providers tab. More capable options do more per message and use your credit faster; nothing to do with your instance plan above. |
| Pairing | Short codes that connect accounts. Connecting a ChatGPT subscription uses one — a short code you confirm after signing in. |
Restart vs Stop
Two buttons on your instance's Server tab, and only one of them touches
your billing:
- Restart Gateway is the safe one. It restarts your assistant's
software to recover from glitches — stopped answering, a channel looks
stuck — and never affects your billing. Reach for this first.
- Stop Instance shuts the server down **and cancels your
subscription's renewal**. Your data and settings are preserved and you
keep access until the end of the period you've paid for — but it's a
billing action, not a troubleshooting one.
> If your assistant just seems stuck, that's a Restart Gateway, never a
> Stop.
There's a fuller walkthrough of both buttons in