The Experiments tab

The tab in front when the console opens. One row per run — one measurement, in a folder of its own — and below it the selected run: its buttons and four panes. How to take an experiment from installed to measured is Run an experiment.

The Experiments tab, with a completed run selected.

The Runs card

Column	Shows
Run	The run’s name — also the name of its folder.
Experiment	The experiment it belongs to.
Source	The module version it runs.
State	never run, created (named, not started), running, paused, completed, stopped or aborted. A run whose job died before it could write its end — killed from the task manager, a crash — reads aborted, and the devices it started are stopped, so it can be resumed or deleted.
Progress	Steps done of the plan’s total — 5/12 steps — and what the step in flight last reported.
Started, Ended	When, as YY-MM-DD,HH:MM:SS in local time.
Operator	Who measures it, as entered in Create run.
Note	The first line of the run’s latest note — see Experiment ▸ Add note….

An experiment with no run yet has a row of its own. Double-click a row to configure it.

Button	Icon	Does
Create		Name a new run and choose its configuration, without starting it — see below.
Duplicate		A new run repeating the selected one, with the settings it used.
Load		Show a run measured elsewhere, from its folder. Nothing is copied.

Create run

Create opens Create run. The run is created, not started: Run starts it.

Field	Means
Experiment	A declared experiment, an installed one not yet declared (it is declared for you), or a folder loaded with Hub ▸ Load from…, shown as name (local).
Experiment name, Repository, Ref	The experiment’s declaration.
Config	The configuration file the run starts from. It is copied into the run’s folder, so changing it later changes nothing for this run.
Arguments	Extra arguments for the experiment module.
Run name	The run’s name, and its folder’s. Letters, digits, ., - and _; a name an earlier run had is refused. It can still be changed in Configure until the run starts.
Operator	Who measures it. Required; proposed from the last run created on this bench. Kept in the run’s folder (created.json) and shown in the Operator column.
Note	Why: the sample, what is being tried. Optional. It is the first entry of the run’s notes.txt; Experiment ▸ Add note… adds more while the run is open and after it has ended, and the Note column shows the latest.

The run card

The title names the experiment and the run — and, after Pause or Stop, that the request is waiting for the step in flight to finish.

Button	Icon	Does	Available when
Run		Start the run (Ctrl+Shift+R) — see below. On a stopped or aborted run it reads Resume and continues, skipping the steps already done.	the run is not going
Pause		Hold before the next step, keeping the instruments connected and where they are. Reads Continue while paused.	the run is going
Stop		Let the step in flight finish, then stop. Nothing is lost.	the run is going
Abort		Stop now. The unfinished step runs again on Resume.	the run is going
Configure		This run’s settings and the experiment’s device setup — see below.	a run of this bench is selected
Install		Install the experiment module, as a job.	same
Update		Pull and reinstall the experiment module, as a job.	same
Open run		Open the run’s folder in the file manager.	the run has a folder
Delete run		Delete the run and its data, after a confirmation. For a loaded run it only stops showing it.	the run is not going

Pause, Stop and Abort all wait for a step boundary — a step either commits whole or not at all — so a request made during a long exposure is pending, not ignored.

Starting a run

Run first opens each instrument the experiment needs, on its bench — seconds of hardware per instrument — and a small window names the one being opened. Closing that window stops nothing: the run starts either way, and the Devices tab shows what each instrument is doing. What happens in those seconds is What Run does.

Configure

Configure , Experiment ▸ Configure…, or a double-click on a run opens its configuration. Two tabs; Save writes both.

Above the tabs, a run’s Run name: change it before the run starts and its folder, its configuration and a duplicate of it follow the new name. A name an earlier run had is refused, and a name that is refused leaves the run as it was. A started run keeps its name.

Experiment Config — the settings the experiment module declares, as a form: a box per group, a spin box with its unit for a number, a drop-down for a choice, rows with + and − for a list. Grey text in an empty field is the default. Config file switches between the module’s configuration files; Edit YAML… opens the file itself.

Which file it edits depends on what is selected:

• a created run — that run’s own copy, and nothing else;

• a run that has started — shown read-only: its plan was built from it. Duplicate the run to measure again with changes;

• an experiment with no run — this bench’s own copy of the file (<home>/run/<experiment>/config/…), which new runs start from. The module’s files are never written: they change only through its repository.

Save changes only the values you edited, each on its own line, so the file’s comments and layout stay as they were.

Device Setup — the benches the experiment runs across and the devices on each. What it means is in Run an experiment.

• Benches — a row per bench: Name, Address of its agent, Token, and Shared data — where that bench sees the lab’s shared disk. The first row is the machine the experiment runs on. Add and Remove change the list; hovering a cell shows the variable its value is saved under.

• A group per device: Package, Host (which bench runs it), Repository, Ref, Version, Arguments, Autostart and Environment.

The panes

A run that has not started has nothing in any pane yet.

Log

The output of the run’s job on this bench. When this bench has no job for the run — it was measured on another bench, or an uninstall emptied this one’s home — the pane shows the copy the run kept in its job-logs/ folder.

Data

The last 50 records the run has committed, one row per step; open a row to see its values. open or close every level.

Report

• Report — the report.html the run wrote into its folder when it ended, when and how big.

• Notes — what the operator recorded during the run.

• Measured by, Package versions — what produced the data.

Two buttons at the bottom:

• Export HTML asks where to save, and writes the run’s report there — data, analysis, notes and device setup in one file.

• Add report asks What happened? and records the answer in the run’s journal, between the steps it happened between: a helium top-up, a realignment. Available while the run is going; Experiment ▸ Report… does the same.

What the report contains is in Run results.

Visualization

The experiment’s own views of the run, when its module declares them; otherwise plots of the run’s recorded numbers.

• Open in its own window runs the module’s viewer as a separate program — the way in when the console cannot load the views itself, which the pane then explains.

• On the views’ own menu bar, Console ▸ Open these views in a window floats them all out of the pane; Bring the views back here returns them.