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docs: add a top-level README mapping the shipped CLI surface

Browse Source 
The repo had no README, and a milestone fieldtest found the whole blueprint-data
verb family (run / sweep / mc / walkforward over a blueprint.json), the
graph build / graph introspect construction surface, and the op-list document
shape discoverable only from the design ledger — a downstream consumer with just
the binary could not find the milestone's own surface.

Document them as a discoverability map: each verb's purpose and shape, the
open-vs-closed and family concepts, and a worked op-list example (copied from a
compiling test). Per-flag detail is kept light and delegated to `aura <cmd>
--help` and the ledger, so the README neither duplicates nor collides with the
in-flight help rework and does not drift as flags evolve.

This is the discoverability half of the harness-retirement work; retiring the
hard-wired harnesses themselves stays gated on the project-as-crate authoring
layer.

refs #159
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# aura
**aura is a "game engine for traders."** It is a Rust framework — and a
playground — for authoring trading strategies as composable dataflow nodes,
backtesting them deterministically and massively in parallel, validating them
(sweep / Monte-Carlo / walk-forward), and freezing a validated strategy into a
standalone bot with a broker connection. Its differentiator is the **World**: a
program that constructs and orchestrates whole *families* of backtests, not the
single run.
This README is a discoverability map of the shipped `aura` CLI — *what commands
exist and what they do*. It deliberately keeps per-flag detail light; the two
authoritative sources for exact syntax are always:
- `aura <command> --help` — the exhaustive flag grammar.
- The design ledger (`docs/design/INDEX.md`) and glossary (`docs/glossary.md`)
— the concepts and invariants behind the surface.
## Build & run
aura is a Cargo workspace. Build everything and you get one binary named `aura`:
```sh
cargo build --workspace # binary at target/debug/aura
cargo build --workspace --release # optimized, at target/release/aura
```
Invoke it as `aura <command> …` (examples below use the plain name).
## Concepts in one breath
- **Blueprint** — a serialized signal graph as data: a param-generic
`price → bias` node graph. A blueprint file (`blueprint.json`) is the unit a
downstream consumer loads and drives verbs over.
- **Open vs. closed** — a blueprint with unbound (free) numeric knobs is *open*;
one with every knob bound is *closed*. Different verbs want different states
(see each verb below).
- **Family** — the set of runs one verb produces over a blueprint (a sweep grid,
a Monte-Carlo seed set, a walk-forward window sequence). Families are persisted
in a content-addressed store and can be listed, ranked, and reproduced.
- **Axis** — one named, sweepable knob of a blueprint (e.g. `graph.fast.length`),
bound with a comma-separated value list.
## Running & orchestrating a loaded blueprint
These verbs all take the **blueprint file as their first positional argument**
and drive a family of runs over it. (Each verb also has a legacy built-in form
selected by `--strategy`/`--harness` instead of a `.json` path, for the
engine's own bundled example strategies — see `--help`.)
| Command | Purpose |
|---|---|
| `aura run <bp.json>` | Run one backtest of a **closed** blueprint and print its report. An open (free-knob) blueprint is refused with a clean error — bind it, or use `sweep`. |
| `aura sweep <bp.json> --list-axes` | **Discover** the blueprint's open, sweepable knobs. Prints each as `<name>:<kind>`. Run this first to learn the axis names. |
| `aura sweep <bp.json> --axis <name>=<csv> [--axis …]` | Run a **grid family** over the named axes and persist it. |
| `aura mc <bp.json> --seeds <n>` | Run a **Monte-Carlo family** of `n` seeded realizations. Wants a **closed** blueprint (the inverse of sweep). |
| `aura walkforward <bp.json> --axis <name>=<csv> [--axis …]` | Run an **in-sample-refit walk-forward family** — rolling optimize + out-of-sample test across windows, stitched into one verdict + parameter stability. `--select` chooses the per-window objective. |
| `aura runs families` | List every persisted family (id, kind, member count). |
| `aura runs family <id> [rank <metric>]` | List one family's members, optionally ranked best-first by an R metric (e.g. `sqn_normalized`, `expectancy_r`). |
| `aura reproduce <family-id>` | Re-derive every member of a persisted family from the content-addressed store and check it is bit-identical (the C18/C1 determinism guarantee). |
**Important contract — every open knob is mandatory.** On `sweep` and
`walkforward`, the knobs enumerated by `--list-axes` are *all* required: you must
supply an `--axis` for each open knob. There is no default value — pin a knob you
don't want to vary with a single-value axis (`--axis name=4`). Omitting one is a
clean error naming the missing knob, not a silent default.
Use `aura <cmd> --help` for the full data-window (`--real`/`--from`/`--to`),
naming (`--name`/`--trace`), and selection (`--select`) flags.
## Authoring & introspecting topology
A blueprint is authored declaratively from a **JSON op-list**: an ordered list
of by-identifier construction ops replayed against the standard node vocabulary.
| Command | Purpose |
|---|---|
| `aura graph build` | Read an op-list document on **stdin**, build the blueprint, and print its canonical JSON to **stdout** (no trailing newline — it is the content-addressed artifact). |
| `aura graph introspect --vocabulary` | List every node type available to op-lists. |
| `aura graph introspect --node <T>` | Show one type's input ports, output fields, and param paths (with the bind-value form). |
| `aura graph introspect --unwired` | Read a *partial* op-list on stdin and list its still-open interior slots. |
| `aura graph introspect --content-id` | Read an op-list on stdin and print the SHA-256 content id of the blueprint it would build. |
### Op-list shape
Each element is one op, tagged by `"op"`. Node params are bound with the **typed
`Scalar` form** — a tagged, capitalized-kind object: `{"I64": 5}`, `{"F64":
1.5}`, `{"Bool": true}`. A worked example (an SMA-crossover → bias signal):
```json
[
{"op":"source","role":"price","kind":"F64"},
{"op":"add","type":"SMA","name":"fast","bind":{"length":{"I64":2}}},
{"op":"add","type":"SMA","name":"slow","bind":{"length":{"I64":4}}},
{"op":"add","type":"Sub"},
{"op":"add","type":"Bias"},
{"op":"feed","role":"price","into":["fast.series","slow.series"]},
{"op":"connect","from":"fast.value","to":"sub.lhs"},
{"op":"connect","from":"slow.value","to":"sub.rhs"},
{"op":"connect","from":"sub.value","to":"bias.signal"},
{"op":"expose","from":"bias.bias","as":"bias"}
]
```
Piping this document into `aura graph build` emits a `blueprint.json` you can
then feed to `run` / `sweep` / `mc` / `walkforward` above:
```sh
aura graph build < crossover.ops.json > crossover.bp.json
aura sweep crossover.bp.json --list-axes
```
The op kinds are `source`, `input`, `add`, `feed`, `connect`, and `expose`. See
`aura graph introspect --node <T>` for a type's exact ports and the op-script
grammar in the design ledger for the full semantics.
## Where to go deeper
- `aura <command> --help` — exhaustive, always-current flag grammar.
- `docs/design/INDEX.md` — the design ledger: architecture, invariants, the World.
- `docs/glossary.md` — canonical terminology (blueprint, family, axis, sweep /
Monte-Carlo / walk-forward, R, content-id, …).