Find your task, and understand the evidence.
These docs cover the same product for several kinds of reader. Each section answers a different question, and the sections use the same vocabulary. This page explains where to look, how the pages are arranged, and the terms you will meet.
Technical reference tables include HTTPHTTPHypertext Transfer Protocol: the rules a browser or program uses to send a request to a web service and receive its response. (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), the web request protocol. They also list environment variablesEnvironment variableA named setting made available to a running program. The customer launcher reads these settings from the installation environment file., the settings software receives when it starts.
The sections
| Section | Written for | What you will find |
|---|---|---|
| Start here | Anyone new to NovusLens | What the product is, how an engagement works, a first hour and this page. |
| Product Guide | Anyone looking up a product concept, input or message | Concepts, tasks, input formats, states, findingsFindingA difference in the records that needs a decision. It includes its sources and can describe a slow handoff, disputed fact or missing owner. and answer explanations. The question-mark help draws from these pages. |
| Tutorials | People following a complete user or operator tutorial | The scrolling User Tutorial and Operations Tutorial, with screenshots and videos. |
| Concepts | Anyone who meets a term they do not know | Each idea explained once, in plain language. Other pages link here. |
| Using NovusLens | The people who open the product each day: executives, analysts and stewards | The product view by view, and the questions each view answers. |
| Bringing data in | People connecting data sources and groups of AI agents | The inputs a twin accepts, how each is sent, and what each one is allowed to establish. |
| Operating | Operators who install, run, back up and verify a twinTwinNovusLens’s model of one organisation, built from records about its teams, services and how they rely on one another. It is only as current as those records. | Setup, the ./lens commands, health checks and the operator’s path from installation to handover. |
| Architecture | Engineers maintaining the code | The running services, their parts and the code that implements them. |
| Reference | Anyone looking up a command, route, variable or term | Tables of commands, HTTP routes, environment variables, settings files and definitions. |
If you are not sure where to start, begin with Start here. If you are reading to do a task, go to the section for your role.
How the pages are arranged
Pages for users and operators follow the order of the task. Each page explains the goal, prerequisites and steps. It then describes the expected result and what to do if something goes wrong. Screenshots appear where they help.
Architecture pages describe the mechanism: the real functions, tables and keys, and what each part refuses and what it promises. Reference pages are tables to search, not material to read through. Architecture and reference pages were written from the code, so where an older document disagrees with the code, the pages follow the code.
The documentation keeps links to its supporting repository files in page metadata. The evidence labels below describe support for claims about your organisation.
A word with a dotted underline is defined in the glossary. Point at it, or move to it with the keyboard, to read the definition. Select it to open the glossary at that entry.
The evidence labels
NovusLens labels every claim with how it is known. The labels are the evidence ladderEvidence ladderThe three levels of support a record can have, in order: told, shown and measured..
toldToldEvidence that somebody stated the value. It is the weakest level, and it is always attributed to its speaker. shownShownEvidence that a document supports a value. A recovery plan that states a target shows the target, but it does not show that the target was achieved. measuredMeasuredThe top evidence level: a connected source recorded the observation within a stated period. A measurement shows what was observed on that occasion, not that it always holds.toldToldEvidence that somebody stated the value. It is the weakest level, and it is always attributed to its speaker. means someone stated the claim. shownShownEvidence that a document supports a value. A recovery plan that states a target shows the target, but it does not show that the target was achieved. means a document supports it. measuredMeasuredThe top evidence level: a connected source recorded the observation within a stated period. A measurement shows what was observed on that occasion, not that it always holds. means a source recorded it. You will see a label next to facts in the product and in the examples in these docs. A label says what kind of support stands behind a claim. It is not a guarantee that the claim is accurate, so check the date and any disagreement before you rely on it.
The Product GuideGuideThe help pages inside NovusLens. They explain the pages, input formats and tasks in the version you use. They are product instructions, not evidence about the organisation. is part of these docs. Select Docs in the product to open the local documentation. Question-mark help draws from the same Guide pages. The Guide explains the product. Its pages never appear as findings or count as evidence about your organisation.
The naming rules
The product is called NovusLens. Conway+ is the name of the framework NovusLens is built on, and it is not the name of the product. The company is Novus-i2, written exactly like that.
C/A/RC/A/RThree separate scores for a team or service: Complexity, Agility and Recoverability. Each uses current evidence and the customer’s stated scoring rules. stands for Complexity, Agility and RecoverabilityRecoverabilityThe R in C/A/R: how well a team or service restores acceptable service after a failure. Recovery times and tested alternatives can supply evidence., and it is used only for those three measures. The three accountability questions for AI agents are CapabilityCapabilityWhat a team can provide or an agent can do. NovusLens records the claim and the evidence that supports it. · AuthorityAuthorityWhat a team or agent is allowed to decide or do. For an agent, this comes from a named person or system that grants permission. · ResponsibilityResponsibilityThe work or result that a team or agent answers for. NovusLens records the person answerable for it.. The questions are always written out in full so that readers do not confuse them with C/A/R.
CPLCPLCritical path length. The total coordination weight of the longest chain of dependencies in the model. NovusLens reports it as index points, not elapsed time. stands for critical path length. The product’s screens use the term dependency-chain index for the same figure. These docs use CPL and say so the first time it appears on a page.
These docs use British spelling, such as organisation, behaviour and licence as a noun. Headings use sentence case.
What these docs will not do
The docs describe a product that maps, surfaces, locates and advises, and that produces evidence. Where a page describes an interface, it describes what the interface shows, not an action NovusLens takes on the customer’s systems or agents. NovusLens does not issue a compliance verdict, and no page here suggests otherwise.