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Interface Guide

This is a reference for the Traces analyst interface — every screen, panel, tab, button, and modal, and what each one does. Use it the way you would a glossary: when you are looking at a control and want to know exactly what it does (or why it is greyed out), find it here.

If you are looking for how to accomplish a task (build a connector, configure pagination, map a dependency), start with the task guides under Analyst Guide instead. This section describes the UI itself.

How the interface is organized​

Traces uses a deliberately minimal ("slimline") chrome so the working area stays as large as possible. There are three layers to orient around:

  1. The slim top bar — a ~40px-tall global bar present on every analyst page. It holds the menu toggle, the Traces logo, and a cluster of utility controls on the right (theme, feature request, notifications, settings, account). It does not contain the page navigation links — those live in a slide-out drawer behind the menu button. See Navigation & global chrome.

  2. The page workspaces — full-page screens you reach from the drawer: the Connectors workspace (list, filters, and entry points for creating connectors), plus the operational screens (Dashboard, Collections, Credentials, Customers, Roadmap) that are documented in the operational section.

  3. The connector editor — a dedicated full-height shell with its own top bar and left-rail tabs. This is where almost all connector-building work happens. It is described across several pages:

    • Connector editor shell — the frame: left-rail tabs, publish flow, undo/redo, unpublished-changes tracking, concurrent-edit banner, and the Cmd+K endpoint search.
    • Endpoint editor — the per-endpoint panel with its vertical tabs (Response, Config, Paging, Headers, Curl, AI Guide), the test controls, and the response tools.
    • Phases & execution order — the Bulk panel, the list/flow/timeline views, AI reorder, and dependency-order validation.
    • Version history — the git-style diff page for comparing, adopting, and restoring published versions.

Scope of this section​

These pages cover the connector-editing screens in depth. The operational screens (Dashboard, Collections, Credentials, Customers, Roadmap) are documented separately; this section links to those pages where the two areas connect (for example, the Up Next panel on the Connectors workspace links to the Roadmap).

note

The interface evolves. Where a control is a placeholder or is still being wired up, this guide says so explicitly rather than describing intended behaviour that does not yet work.