DevLog #7: WebOS Evolution, The Black Room, and “lns” Orchestration

This update marks a fundamental shift in how we interact with the simulation ecosystem. We have moved away from static dashboards to a fully dynamic WebOS environment within lunar-testbench, alongside a complete overhaul of our launching utility.

Lunar-Testbench: The WebOS Overhaul

The Testbench has been reimagined as a “Black Room”—a dark, immersive workspace where everything begins with three spotlights.

The Spotlight Mechanic

The interface features three dormant flashlights.

Service Ignition: Clicking a spotlight “turns it on” and launches its corresponding backend service.
Dynamic App Injection: Once a service is active, the specific applications depending on that service manifest below the spotlight.
The Sandbox: Our most complex tool, the Sandbox, now requires all three services to be active simultaneously, setting the stage for deep-system integration in future updates.

The Dock

To manage the chaos of multiple windows, we’ve implemented a Bottom Dock. Every running application is pinned here, allowing for seamless switching between training, validation, and live simulation environments.

Orchestration: From “lunar-start” to “lns”

The way we boot the engine has been streamlined. We’ve stripped the heavy lifting out of the primary entry point to create a more modular startup flow.

lns Utility: lunar-start has been evolved into lns—a lightweight micro-utility. Its sole purpose is to initialize the Testbench and trigger the backend.
lunar-start-backend: This is a new, dedicated service that acts as the primary launcher. It monitors and manages the lifecycle of all other applications within the suite, ensuring that when you click a service in the UI, the backend is ready to deploy it.