DOCS/VIEWALYZER/TRACE DOMAINS
VIEWALYZER · GPUI EDITION
Trace Domains
A Trace Domain teaches ViewAlyzer a subsystem's vocabulary as data: what to observe on the target, how to turn observations into knowledge, when to raise a finding, and how it all presents. The app knows generic shapes (counters, gauges, rings, states) and ARM; a domain knows what a MAC, an IMU or a motor stage is. Domains are .vadomain files, and a package is a folder that can also carry a live instrument.
Needs: nothing. Enabled domains apply to every recording and capture.
The sidebar section
Trace Domains in the sidebar lists the installed domains:
- the toggle enables or disables a domain (an enabled domain's channels, derived series and verdicts apply to the next capture and to recordings you open);
- the gear opens the domain in the Domain Editor;
- the delete button removes it, after confirmation;
- a domain that bundles a live instrument shows its parameters as fields, and one live instrument runs per capture.
Load Domain File installs a single .vadomain after validating it; Load Domain Package installs a folder. Installed domains live in the app's per-user folder, so they follow you between projects.
What a domain adds to the views
| PART OF THE DESCRIPTOR | WHERE IT SHOWS |
|---|---|
| channels | How the domain's traces present in the Trace panel: display type, units, ranges, grouping |
| sampled_state | Values the host reads from the target while capturing (registers, counters, ring positions), with preconditions that decide when a read is meaningful; they arrive as polled channels |
| derived | Series computed from the observations (rates, occupancy, differences) |
| verdicts | Diagnoses with severities and evidence, raised in the Analyzer as Verdict findings, with the sampled values around the onset listed under them |
| instrument | A bundled live recorder started with the capture (a bench instrument, a sniffer), merged on the firmware's clock |
The Domain Editor
A panel for editing a descriptor in place, opened from the domain's gear: a structured Form view over the parsed descriptor (channels, sampled state, derived series, verdicts as cards you edit field by field) and a raw JSON tab for structural changes, validated before the file is saved so a bad key or an unknown channel is reported rather than silently kept. The format reference, including a worked example, is Trace Domain descriptors.
Tips
- Write the verdict text as the sentence you would say to a colleague; it is what the Analyzer shows verbatim.
- Preconditions keep a domain honest on hardware where a block is disabled: a channel whose precondition fails simply does not sample, and the log says why.