USER GUIDE

Using the Dashboard

Chimera's Command Center is a single-page infrastructure console embedded in the Go binary (internal/gateway/ui.go). There is no Node/React build step — open /__chimera/ on the same listener as the vSphere SDK.

Shell layout

Region	Role
Left rail	Control Center nav, provider personas (vSphere active in UI; Nutanix/Hyper-V/AWS/Azure via CHIMERA_PERSONA; others roadmap), System Health ring
Top bar	Global search (⌘K), Scenario shortcut, Fault Studio (bolt), notifications bell → Live requests, Settings (gear), user menu (logout)
Main column	Overview KPIs, topology, Top Activity, Live requests, VM inventory, Scenario Launcher, VMDK Library
Right drawers	Fault Studio (fault injection) and Settings (listen address + admin credentials)

How to move around

1. Sign in — mutating controls (scenarios, faults, VMDK upload, credential save) require a dashboard session.
2. Use sidebar anchors or scroll — Overview is one long workbench page with hash targets (#topology, #inventory, #vmdks, #requests, #activity, #scenarios).
3. Click ↻ Refresh after scenario or fault changes if you want an immediate telemetry pull (otherwise ~2s polling).
4. Open View Full Topology for the zoomable estate map (Fit / ＋, Escape to exit).
5. Filter VMs by name or power state; paginate 5 per page; global search focuses inventory.
6. Open Fault Studio from the bolt icon (not the gear — that is Settings).

Operate from the console (UX)

1. Land on Overview after login; read six KPI tiles and sidebar health ring.
2. Drive traffic with selftest or Transiva against http(s)://<host>:8989/sdk — dashboard polls do not inflate metrics.
3. Use Scenario Launcher for presets; open Fault Studio for manual latency/failure/NFC drop tuning.
4. Stage real disks via VMDK Library when testing conversion, not just synthetic export.
5. Bell icon jumps to Live requests when errors spike; toggle View All for 30-row buffer.
6. Rotate admin password under Settings before exposing <host> beyond a lab VLAN.

Empty / fail: See table below; page guides under pages/ have surface-specific checks.

Symptom	Check
Login loop	Defaults admin/admin; or values set via Settings / CHIMERA_ADMIN_*
Empty inventory	Simulator counts in config; restart after config changes
No KPI movement	Clients must hit /sdk, not /__chimera/
Self-test fails	URL must be the SDK (/sdk), not Command Center
Fault Studio vs Settings	Bolt = faults; gear = settings

Success: KPIs, activity donut, and live request feed update during exports; scenarios toast confirmation; VM/fixture badges reflect VMDK matching.

Next: Page-by-page guides · Workflows