UX Verification Plan

This plan verifies the production dashboard from the point of view of an operator who needs to understand the current crypto volatility environment, identify what is driving it, sync Alpha trades into the dashboard, and interpret those trades on the Performance screen.

For the primary operator narrative, start with User Journey. This file is the browser verification checklist for that journey.

Production entry point: Vol Dashboard frontend

Canonical backend: Vol Dashboard backend

Verification Goals

Browser Setup

1. Open the production frontend.
2. Open browser DevTools with Console and Network visible.
3. Hard refresh the page.
4. Filter Network by run.app, api, amberdata, alpha, and vercel during the walkthrough.
5. Treat any uncaught console error, persistent 4xx/5xx, Vercel request, direct Amberdata request, or direct Alpha request as a blocker.

Operator Story

The dashboard is designed as a drill-down journey. The navigation groups the journey by operator question rather than by raw data source.

Detailed Walkthrough

1. Model Explorer

URL: Model Explorer

Actions:

1. Select BTC.
2. Read the Decision Summary headline thesis, agreement, confidence, and source date.
3. Review the Market Setup, Model Trust, Probability Outcomes, and Alpha Measurement groups in order.
4. Confirm each group can expand into signal nodes.
5. Open detailed nodes for Market Setup and Model Trust; confirm inputs, calculations, diagnostics, help text, and source links remain available.

Interpretation:

Model Explorer is the model front door. It should make the current read understandable before the user opens detailed charts. It must not hide missing data: unavailable layers stay unavailable, conditional layers remain gated by stationarity, and detailed nodes remain available.

Pass criteria:

2. Overview

URL: Overview

Actions:

1. Select BTC and 24h.
2. Confirm the top cards load: price, DVol, IV 30d, RV 30d, VRP, and volume 24h.
3. Switch to 7d, 30d, and 90d; confirm charts and cards update or show explicit no-data states.
4. Switch assets to ETH and SOL; confirm numbers refresh and stale BTC values are not retained.
5. Review volatility surface, term structure, IV/RV history, cones, DVol, vol-of-vol, and seasonality/correlation panels.

Interpretation:

The Overview page answers whether the market is currently high-vol or low-vol, whether implied volatility is expensive versus realized volatility, and where the volatility surface is shaped abnormally. This is the starting screen because it frames every later decision.

Pass criteria:

3. Flow

URL: Flow

Actions:

1. Keep BTC selected first.
2. Confirm options flow, decorated trades, GEX, put-call, option chain, and instrument panels load.
3. Change the asset and range controls where available.
4. Check that empty trade buckets render as empty states, not broken charts.

Interpretation:

The Flow page explains whether actual options trading supports the volatility story from Overview. Put-call balance, top trades, and GEX help explain whether the market is buying protection, chasing upside, or sitting near dealer-sensitive levels.

Pass criteria:

4. Futures

URL: Futures

Actions:

1. Review funding rate, accumulated funding, basis, basis term structure, open interest, and liquidations.
2. Change asset and period controls.
3. Look for discontinuities or impossible units after switching assets.

Interpretation:

The Futures page checks whether leverage and carry confirm or contradict the volatility signal. High positive funding or basis can point to crowded longs; negative funding, liquidations, or falling OI can point to stress or deleveraging.

Pass criteria:

5. Yields

URL: Yields

Actions:

1. Review the purpose panel, option yield table, and futures basis APR chart.
2. Confirm option rows show readable DTE derived from expiry/timestamp when the source omits explicit DTE.
3. Confirm missing DTE or missing yield fields are explicit rather than silently zeroed.
4. Confirm annualized yield, absolute yield, strategy, and premium are labelled clearly.
5. Confirm Delta and IV columns are hidden when the source has no usable values, rather than showing empty placeholder columns.
6. Confirm the basis chart remains readable when one APR outlier exists and that clipped outliers are listed explicitly.

Interpretation:

The Yields page translates option premium and futures basis into carry-style context. It should help an operator build a shortlist for further review. It does not recommend trades: high annualized yield can come from short DTE, far out-of-the-money strikes, stale marks, or genuine premium richness.

Pass criteria:

6. Model Diagnostics

URL: Model Diagnostics

Actions:

1. Review gamma analytics, live GEX magnet/repeller levels, spot-vol dynamics, smile tracking, volatility heatmap, regime stationarity, and alert signals.
2. Confirm live GEX magnet/repeller levels show source status, as-of time, age, live row count, and strike count.
3. In the stationarity panel, check Stable, Unstable, Insufficient, p-values, mean shift, and blend weight.
4. Use alert refresh in dry-run mode first.
5. If testing Slack dispatch, disable dry run only after confirming the alert content is acceptable.

Interpretation:

Model Diagnostics turns the raw market state into model and monitoring context. Stationarity tells the user whether regime-conditioned relationships are stable enough to trust; alerts identify notable conditions that may require action or investigation.

Pass criteria:

7. Probability

URL: Probability

Actions:

1. Review current state, implied density, conditional density, touch probability, and candidate-screen sections.
2. Change asset/range inputs where available.
3. Confirm probability values stay within valid bounds and charts do not show impossible densities.

Interpretation:

The Probability page converts options-implied volatility into market-implied outcomes. The user should use it after Overview and Flow, because probabilities are easier to interpret after understanding the vol surface and flow context. Conditional probability views use stored gex_hourly regime history; they should not be read as the same signal as the live Model Diagnostics magnet/repeller strike levels.

Pass criteria:

8. Trade Book

URL: Trade Book

Actions:

1. Confirm Alpha sync state loads and shows configured portfolios.
2. Run an incremental preview/dry run.
3. Run a full-scope diagnostic dry run only when checking sync completeness, unless intentionally performing a write sync.
4. Confirm source/cache counts, source/cache quantity, source/cache premium, deltas, and unmatched IDs as ingestion diagnostics.
5. Review the synced trade table.
6. Confirm the page has no manual trade-entry or CSV-upload controls.

Interpretation:

The Trade Book page is the bridge from public market context to synced Alpha rows. It confirms that the selected feed scope is loaded and ready for downstream interpretation, but it is not the analytical objective of the workflow.

Pass criteria:

9. Performance

URL: Performance

Actions:

1. Confirm the page loads after the Alpha feed has synced cleanly.
2. Use the default 365d / All filters first.
3. Confirm Opportunity Context shows the loaded sample as scored.
4. Confirm Opportunity Source Groups show available, partial, or unavailable states by group.
5. Confirm "Did we trade the opportunity?" shows an alignment score and label.
6. Confirm "Did we execute well?" either shows sourced quoted benchmark results or says not benchmarked/stale/unavailable, not zero slippage.
7. Confirm "Did it work?" either shows sourced forward-mark P&L or says pending/unavailable, not zero P&L.
8. Confirm Realized P&L Source says not sourced yet, not a derived cashflow total.
9. Confirm 7d states separate pending horizons from unavailable matured horizons.
10. Filter by IMST, ICOI, MSTR, and COIN where available and confirm the same source-quality rules hold.

Interpretation:

The Performance page answers whether synced Alpha trades aligned with available dashboard opportunity context. It only answers whether execution was good or post-trade P&L was positive for rows with sourced quote/mark inputs. It does not answer realized P&L profitability until authoritative accounting or validated lifecycle data exists. This distinction is a pass condition, not a defect.

Pass criteria:

Cross-Screen Checks

Sign-Off Checklist

Final Acceptance Statement

The phase is signed off when an operator can start at Model Explorer, explain the current thesis, drill into market setup and futures drivers, translate the market state into probabilities, check model stability, read Performance as opportunity-alignment analytics, and use Trade Book/Reference for source rows and methodology with clear source-quality boundaries, without seeing stale values, hidden errors, exposed credentials, fake zeros, or non-Cloud Run deployment paths.