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Your First IAPM Session

Difficulty: Beginner | Time: ~10 minutes

Your first time inside IAPM. This walkthrough takes you from launch to confidently navigating your application's 3D environment, reading visual indicators, and having your first conversation with Tessa.

What You'll Learn

  • How to move through the 3D environment
  • What the colors and animations mean
  • How to switch between Grid and Graph views
  • How to interact with Tessa, your AI assistant

Step 1: Launch and Enter Your Grid

  1. Open IAPM from Steam or your desktop shortcut.
  2. Sign in with your IAPM account credentials.
  3. Select a grid from the grid selector. If you don't have a production grid yet, choose the demo grid.
  4. Click Enter to load into the 3D environment.

What you see

The environment loads around you. You're standing on the Grid - a dark, expansive platform stretching out in every direction. Your services appear as glowing objects arranged in rows and columns in front of you. Each one pulses softly with color. The WhereAmI display in the corner of your screen confirms your current location.

Step 2: Look Around

  1. Hold the right mouse button and drag to rotate your view.
  2. Scroll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.
  3. Look in every direction - above you, below you, behind you. The environment extends in all directions.

What you see

As you pan your view, you see the full scope of your application laid out spatially. Services closer to you appear larger and more detailed. Distant services are smaller but still visible, their color indicators readable even from afar. Thin lines connect services to each other - some pulse gently with light, showing live traffic flowing between them.

Step 3: Move Through the Space

  1. Press W to move forward toward your services.
  2. Press A and D to strafe left and right.
  3. Press S to move backward.
  4. Press Space to rise up for a higher vantage point.
  5. Hold Shift while moving to sprint.

What you see

You glide smoothly through the 3D space. As you approach a service, its details become clearer - you can read its name, see its metrics, and observe the connections branching out from it. Rising up with Space gives you a bird's-eye perspective where the full topology comes into view.

ProTip

If you ever feel lost, check the WhereAmI display in the corner of your screen. It shows your current room and location within the environment.

Step 4: Read the Visual Indicators

  1. Look at the colors of your services as you walk past them.
  2. Watch the connecting lines between services - notice how some pulse with light.
Color Meaning
Green Healthy - operating normally
Yellow Elevated latency - slower than usual
Orange High latency or rising error rate
Red Critical - errors or failures detected
Line Style Meaning
Pulsing lines Active request flow between services
Thick lines High throughput connections
Thin lines Low throughput connections

What you see

Most of your services glow green, humming along normally. You might spot a few with yellow or orange indicators - those are worth investigating. The lines connecting services pulse at different speeds and thicknesses, painting a live picture of how traffic flows through your architecture. It's like watching your application breathe.

Step 5: Switch Between Grid and Graph View

  1. Press M to switch to Grid view (if not already active). Services snap into an organized rows-and-columns layout.
  2. Press N to switch to Graph view. Services rearrange based on their actual connections.

What you see

In Grid view, your services are arranged in a clean, orderly layout - easy to scan and compare. When you press N for Graph view, the layout transforms. Services drift and settle into clusters based on their dependencies. Tightly connected services pull toward each other. Isolated services float to the edges. The force-directed physics simulation makes the layout feel alive as services find their natural positions.

Step 6: Meet Tessa

  1. Open the chat panel by clicking the chat icon or pressing the chat shortcut.
  2. Type: Hello, Tessa
  3. Press Enter to send.

What you see

Tessa responds in the chat panel. She's your AI assistant - ready to answer questions about your system, run diagnostics, find problems, and guide your investigation. The chat panel shows the conversation history and Tessa's responses.

Step 7: Ask About Your System

  1. Type: What's the health of my system?
  2. Press Enter and wait for Tessa's response.

What you see

Tessa runs a health check across your entire grid. She reports back with a summary - how many services are healthy, how many have elevated latency, and whether any are in a critical state. She might call out specific services that need attention, giving you an instant situational overview without clicking through a single dashboard.

Energy System

Each interaction with Tessa uses energy. Your energy refills over time. The energy indicator shows your remaining balance - use it wisely during investigations.

Step 8: Select a Service

  1. Walk toward a service that catches your eye, or teleport to its platform (maybe one with a yellow or orange glow).
  2. Left-click on the service to select it.

What you see

The selected service highlights with a visible selection indicator. A details panel appears showing the service's name, key metrics (throughput, latency, error rate), and its direct dependencies. The connections leading to and from this service become more prominent, making it easy to see what talks to what.

Step 9: Enter the Diagnostics Room

  1. With a service selected, look for a trace or span entry in the details panel.
  2. Click on a trace to teleport into the Diagnostics Room.

What you see

The environment shifts. You're no longer on the Grid - you've teleported into the Diagnostics Room, a dedicated space for examining traces. Spans are laid out in 3D around you, each one representing a step in a request's journey through your system. You can see the timing, duration, and relationships between spans spatially. Logs associated with each span float nearby. It's the deepest level of detail IAPM offers.

Step 10: Return and Explore

  1. Navigate back to the Grid using the navigation controls.
  2. You're now ready to explore on your own.

What to Explore Next

Now that you know the basics, try these scenarios:

Next Step Scenario
Troubleshoot a real problem Investigating a Latency Spike
Diagnose cascading failures Root Cause Analysis with Tessa
Understand your architecture Understanding Your Service Topology

Quick Controls Reference

Action Control
Move W A S D
Look Right mouse + drag
Zoom Scroll wheel
Move up/down Space / Ctrl
Sprint Shift + movement
Select Left-click
Grid view M
Graph view N