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UX Onboarding and Mental Model

A crisp map for new users: what objects exist, how to make a verified bundle in under a minute, and how to audit a claim.

Mental model (one-page)

  • Run: a single execution with inputs, backend, seed, and deterministic outputs.
  • Bundle: a manifest + hashed files (reports, evidence, viz specs) produced by commands like helix demo run or helix artifacts build.
  • Transform: a deterministic step inside a run (scoring, simulation, viz); each is schema-tagged.
  • Policy / profile: enforcement knobs (backends allowed, taint handling, budgets). Profile is the named preset; policy is the concrete JSON baked into the manifest.
  • Manifest: the integrity ledger listing every file path + sha256 + schema versions.
  • Evidence: JSON/HTML exports that include provenance (schema kind/version, helix version, git sha, backend, seed).

60-second quickstart (CLI)

pip install helix-governance[viz,schema]  # or pip install -e . inside the repo
helix demo run --demo-id crispr --outdir /tmp/helix_demo --zip
helix verify --kind auto --manifest /tmp/helix_demo/manifest.json
helix report --session /tmp/helix_demo/session.helix --outdir /tmp/helix_demo/report

Outputs: a zipped, hashed demo bundle plus a verified session and HTML report. Runs offline; backends default to deterministic CPU.

Audit walkthrough (reproducing a claim)

  1. Obtain the bundle (zip or directory) and its manifest.json + SHA256SUMS.txt if provided.
  2. Verify hashes: sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txt (or compute manually against manifest.json).
  3. Verify determinism: helix verify --kind repro --manifest /path/to/manifest.json (or point to the bundle root for auto-discovery).
  4. Check policy/profile: inspect manifest.json → policy and schema_versions; confirm taint/trust class is acceptable for the claim.
  5. Re-run with pinned seed/backends if desired: helix run <spec.json> --out /tmp/redo --backends cpu-reference.
  6. For release builds, finish with ./tools/conformance.sh to ensure no local drift.

Studio onboarding cues

  • Welcome screen links to quickstart and conformance packs; plugin manager surfaces trust status and policy profile.
  • Support bundle export is labeled with the determinism/taint class so auditors know if debug mode was active.