Cycles & Transactions
While nodes and edges establish the visual skeleton of your architecture, Cycles and Transactions provide its operational heartbeat. They represent the internal mechanics of your nodes and the functional links between them.
By configuring these two parameters, you enable the simulation engine to trace, calculate, and visualize optimized routing pathways within your active Platform Pipeline Streams.
Understanding Cycles (Intra-Node Behavior)
A Cycle defines the internal computational or operational work performed entirely inside a single node. It binds a human resource profile (Role) to a specific artifact flow (Stream).
Properties like beginning and ending represent the lifecycle states of the streaming artifact—not calendar timestamps. A cycle executes exclusively when an asset enters its configured entry state.
- Processing Duration: Specifies the literal execution cost or processing time required by the node to advance the state of an incoming artifact.
- Resource Capacity: Defines the maximum volume of streaming workload this specific node can process concurrently before creating an architectural bottleneck.
Understanding Transactions (Inter-Node Communication)
While a Cycle handles localized processing, a Transaction governs the movement of an artifact between two distinct structural points (from a Source Node to a Target Node).
- Latency Costs: Measures the transit time, queue delay, or network overhead incurred as an artifact shifts from the source node's domain to the target destination.
- Priority Mappings: Dictates the structural queue precedence. High-priority transactions clear bottlenecks first when multiple streams converge on a single target gateway.
The Engine Pipeline: Generating Simulation Paths
Once your grid is populated with Cycles (processing metrics) and Transactions (transit metrics), you can leverage the evaluation engine to overlay Simulation Paths onto your layout.
The platform runs pathfinding algorithms over your infrastructure, compiling individual cycles and transactions into complete end-to-end streams. These streams are rendered on your canvas as animated, color-coded directional paths:
Figure 4.1: Live execution simulation tracing concurrently running routing profiles across infrastructure nodes.| Path Simulation Profile | Canvas Indicator | Engine Evaluation Metric |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest Path | Crimson Red | Aggregates human role resource rates and asset TCO fields to find the absolute minimum financial profile. |
| Optimal Path | Cobalt Blue | Balances latency targets against processing capabilities to find the most sustainable delivery pattern. |
| Priorital Path | Amber Yellow | Routes traffic strictly along transaction priority vectors, ignoring standard resource costs. |
| Quickest Path | Emerald Green | Minimizes the sum of internal node duration times and external edge transmission latency. |
You can toggle individual streams and path profiles on or off directly from the platform sidebar registry. The engine visualizes flows dynamically without needing to recompile your underlying topology settings.