docs: specs and a user guide for the v2.3.6 analysis tools - #393
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v2.3.6 ships three novel tools and had documentation for one of them. This adds the two missing specs, the user-facing page all three lacked, and corrects the menu reference the reorganization invalidated. `docs/ram-atlas.md` and `docs/latency-oracle.md` follow `docs/pixel-provenance.md`'s shape, which means leading with what each tool ANSWERS, then why it is not a rewiring of panels that already exist, then what a result does NOT mean. That last section is the longest in both, deliberately: the failure mode of a tool like this is a confident wrong label that someone builds a cheat, a Lua script or an achievement condition on. `Inert` is not "unused"; `Live` does not identify a byte; a behaviour is never upgraded by verification; `None` and `Some(0)` are different answers. Both specs also record the reasoning behind decisions that look arbitrary from the code alone: why `START` is excluded from the latency probe buttons (it pauses many games — a reaction to a menu, not to gameplay, and counting it over-reports), why the observable order is framebuffer then audio then work RAM, why the atlas thresholds are PUBLIC constants (a cutoff that is documented but unreachable cannot be shown beside the label it produced), and why classification order and wrap handling are load-bearing rather than incidental. `docs/user-guide/analysis-tools.md` is the user-facing page, written around what each tool is for and how to read its output rather than around its implementation. It says plainly that the labels are hypotheses until verified, that "inert" is not "unused", that measuring latency on a title screen will honestly return inconclusive, and that there is no "verify everything" button and why. `docs/user-guide/menus.md` needed correcting and was already badly stale before this release touched it: it listed five Tools entries against an actual twenty, and still documented a "Show Debugger" toggle removed in v1.7.1. Tools and Debug are rewritten to the grouped structure, Emulation gains the FDS submenu, and the removed toggle is called out rather than silently dropped so a reader who remembers it is not left wondering. `docs/frontend.md` gains the four frontend details that belong there rather than in the specs: both panels defer their work until after the egui render so `nes` is never captured by a viewport closure; both snapshot and `restore_quiet`; results are ROM-bound and cleared through the single `clear_rom_bound_analysis` hook, with the reasoning for one hook rather than one call per panel; and the atlas list is virtualized. Nav: the three specs and the user-guide page are added to `mkdocs.yml`. That also fixes a pre-existing omission — `pixel-provenance.md` was absent from `mkdocs.yml` entirely, so the v2.3.2 marquee spec has been built but unreachable from the docs site since it was written. The build is not strict, which is why nothing complained. Documentation only. No code, no behavior change.
The specs were written before #392's four review rounds and described the code as it stood then. Four behaviours changed during review and the docs are the spec, so they move in the same change as the behaviour: - an address outside work RAM is refused BEFORE any trial is spent and reported `Untested`, not `Inert`; mirrors are deliberately not folded - both panel actions are gated on the same locked-session predicate `emu.write` uses, and the disabled state names which reason applies - both actions are held by a `TimelineGuard`, and `observe` suppresses rewind capture for its whole window - the row filter is walked rather than cached, with the reasoning; the batch button reports the count it will actually attempt Plus a note in the latency spec that the audio fallback stage did not work until v2.3.6 — the trial loop never drained, so the lens returned a constant and the fallback degraded to work RAM silently.
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Reviews should be triggered manually for repositories with fewer than 10 stars. Select Trigger review above or comment ⚙️ Run configurationConfiguration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml Review profile: ASSERTIVE Plan: Pro Plus Run ID: 📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughThe PR adds specifications and user documentation for Latency Oracle, RAM Atlas, and Pixel Provenance. It documents panel lifecycle behavior, measurement and verification semantics, menu organization, and curated documentation navigation. ChangesAnalysis tools documentation
Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes Merge Risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to The documentation currently gives conflicting instructions for opening debugger features and inaccurately describes how analysis tools affect the emulation timeline, which could mislead users; the latency trial-count explanation is also ambiguous. These bounded documentation issues should be corrected before merging. 🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 9✅ Passed checks (9 passed)
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Pull request overview
Adds missing documentation for the v2.3.6 analysis tooling, including two new spec pages (RAM Atlas, Latency Oracle), a user-facing guide for the analysis tools, and updates the menu reference + MkDocs navigation so these docs are reachable on the published site.
Changes:
- Add new specs:
docs/ram-atlas.mdanddocs/latency-oracle.md. - Add a new user-guide page:
docs/user-guide/analysis-tools.md, and link it from the user-guide index + MkDocs nav. - Update
docs/user-guide/menus.mdanddocs/frontend.mdto reflect the reorganized Tools/Debug menus and frontend integration details.
Reviewed changes
Copilot reviewed 7 out of 7 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.
Show a summary per file
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| mkdocs.yml | Adds the new spec pages + user-guide page to the MkDocs nav (and makes Pixel Provenance reachable). |
| docs/user-guide/README.md | Links the new “Analysis tools” page from the user guide index. |
| docs/user-guide/menus.md | Updates Emulation/Tools/Debug menu reference to the grouped v2.3.6 structure and adds analysis-tool pointers. |
| docs/user-guide/analysis-tools.md | New user-facing guide explaining Latency Oracle, RAM Atlas, and Pixel Provenance usage and interpretation. |
| docs/ram-atlas.md | New spec describing RAM Atlas methodology, classification/verification semantics, and non-goals. |
| docs/latency-oracle.md | New spec describing Latency Oracle methodology, confidence semantics, and non-goals. |
| docs/frontend.md | Documents frontend-specific integration details for Latency Oracle + RAM Atlas and their lifecycle/clearing behavior. |
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All three from review, all three claims the pages made that the code does not support. The Tools preamble said every tool window can be popped out into its own OS window. Detach is native-only — the web build always renders them docked — so a web reader was told to look for an affordance that is not there. The Analysis row omitted RAM Atlas, listing it instead in a trailing note below the table. A menu reference whose table does not match the menu is worse than one that is merely incomplete, so it moves into the row and the note goes. The analysis-tools page opened "Three tools under Tools -> Analysis", which reads as an inventory of the submenu; BasicBot is there too. Reworded to say the page covers three of them and to name the fourth, rather than implying the submenu has only three entries.
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Inline comments:
In `@docs/latency-oracle.md`:
- Around line 142-146: Update the trial-budget explanation near the 21-trial
formula to state that each observable uses one idle baseline plus six held
trials, and explicitly include the calculation “(6 + 1) * 3 = 21.”
In `@docs/user-guide/analysis-tools.md`:
- Around line 3-7: Update the opening description of the Analysis tools section
to state that tools may temporarily advance or perturb emulator state during
analysis, then restore the live timeline before returning; remove the inaccurate
claim that they never alter emulation while preserving the distinction from
BasicBot.
In `@docs/user-guide/menus.md`:
- Around line 97-99: Update the user-guide debugger documentation, including the
main guide’s opening description and the README overview, to remove stale claims
that the debugger is a backtick-toggled overlay. Document only the direct panel
access path, while preserving the backtick key’s RetroAchievements status-bar
behavior and the existing Show Debugger removal context.
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…t six files said All three from review, and all three are the failure mode this release is about: documentation asserting something its own neighbouring text, or the code, contradicts. The latency trial budget read as 19. "One idle baseline plus one held trial per button, per observable" parses as 1 + 6*3; the code is `(PROBE_BUTTONS.len() + 1) * OBSERVABLE_ORDER.len()` — the baseline is re-run PER observable, so (6 + 1) * 3 = 21. Now spelled out with the arithmetic. The analysis-tools page said the tools "never alter emulation" and then, sixty lines later, that RAM Atlas advances the emulator and Verify changes memory. Both describe the same tools. Reworded to "output-only in effect": an analysis may advance or perturb the emulator while it runs and restores the live timeline before returning, which is the true and more useful statement, and it explains why the tools are unavailable during netplay. The menu reference's opening described the debugger as an overlay toggled with backtick, while its own Debug section — corrected earlier in this same PR — said panels open directly and the toggle was removed in v1.7.1. Chasing that one found the claim is false in six places, not one, and has been since v1.7.0. `SysAction::ToggleDebug` at `app.rs:6344` sets `ra_detail`: the key toggles the status-bar RetroAchievements read-out. The user guide's keyboard table, its troubleshooting page (which told users to press it to open a debugger, twice), the save-states page, `debugger/mod.rs`'s module preamble and `config.rs`'s field doc all still described the retired behaviour. Corrected against the handler rather than against each other. The `debug_overlay` config field keeps its name deliberately — renaming it would break every existing `config.toml` — so the field is documented as historical rather than renamed.
Antigravity review (Gemini via Ultra)This PR documents the v2.3.6 analysis tools (Latency Oracle, RAM Atlas, Pixel Provenance) with internal specifications and user-facing guides, and updates documentation to reflect the retirement of the debugger overlay. Blocking issuesNone found. Suggestions
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Good suggestion, and technically the right end state — This is a documentation change: it corrects six places that described the backtick key as toggling the debugger overlay, which it has not done since v1.7.0. Renaming the field is a code change touching Recorded as follow-up. The field is documented as historical in the meantime, so the next reader knows the name is a fossil rather than a description — which was the actual harm. |
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Documentation only — no code, no behaviour change.
v2.3.6 ships three novel analysis tools and had documentation for one of them. This adds the two missing specs, the user-facing page all three lacked, and corrects the menu reference the reorganization invalidated.
The two specs
docs/ram-atlas.mdanddocs/latency-oracle.mdfollowdocs/pixel-provenance.md's shape: lead with what the tool answers, then why it is not a rewiring of panels that already exist, then what a result does not mean.That last section is the longest in both, deliberately. The failure mode of a tool like this is a confident wrong label that someone builds a cheat, a Lua script, or a RetroAchievements condition on:
Inertis not "unused" — a byte the game rewrites from a master copy each frame reads inert because the poke is overwritten.Livedoes not identify the byte; it says the byte participates in what the lens observes.Behaviouris never upgraded by verification:RisingCounter+Liveis two observations, not a conclusion that it is the score.NoneandSome(0)are different latency answers and must never be collapsed.Both specs also record the reasoning behind decisions that look arbitrary from the code alone — why
STARTis excluded from the latency probe buttons (it pauses many games: a reaction to a menu, not to gameplay, and counting it over-reports), why the observable order is framebuffer → audio → work RAM, why the atlas thresholds are public constants (a cutoff documented but unreachable cannot be shown beside the label it produced), and why classification order and wrap handling are load-bearing rather than incidental.The user guide
docs/user-guide/analysis-tools.mdis written around what each tool is for and how to read its output. It says plainly that the labels are hypotheses until verified, that "inert" is not "unused", that measuring latency on a title screen will honestly return inconclusive, and that there is no "verify everything" button and why.The menu reference was already wrong
docs/user-guide/menus.mdneeded correcting for the v2.3.6 regrouping — and was already badly stale before this release touched it: it listed five Tools entries against an actual twenty, and still documented a "Show Debugger" toggle removed in v1.7.1. Tools and Debug are rewritten to the grouped structure, Emulation gains the FDS submenu, and the removed toggle is called out rather than silently dropped, so a reader who remembers it is not left wondering.Frontend notes and nav
docs/frontend.mdgains the four details that belong there rather than in the specs: both panels defer their work until after the egui render sonesis never captured by a viewport closure; both snapshot andrestore_quiet; results are ROM-bound and cleared through the singleclear_rom_bound_analysishook (with the reasoning for one hook rather than one call per panel); and the atlas list is virtualized.The three specs and the guide page are added to
mkdocs.yml. That also fixes a pre-existing omission:pixel-provenance.mdwas absent frommkdocs.ymlentirely, so the v2.3.2 marquee spec has been built but unreachable from the docs site since it was written. The build is not strict, which is why nothing complained.Summary by CodeRabbit