Samples and Traces

A sample is the atomic piece of observed state in Ironclad.

Each sample has:

• content
• one or more traces

Content

The content is the string that operations transform and that snapshots ultimately compare.

It might be:

• one line from a file
• one HTML node
• one JSON value
• one command output

Traces

Traces are small key-value maps that explain provenance.

Examples:

{ "path": "menu.txt" }

{ "json_node_path": "$['dessert']" }

{ "start": "10", "end": "24" }

Each time an operation evolves a sample, it usually appends a new trace.

That means a single sample can tell a small story:

1. it came from menu.txt
2. then it was split into lines
3. then one regex extracted a piece of it

When inspect --trace or diff --trace is useful, it is usually because that story matters as much as the final content.