Living System Snapshots: Supervision & Process Hierarchies
Innovation: Multi-Dimensional System Representation
This diagram combines 5 dimensions of understanding in a single view:
- 🏗️ Static Structure - Code organization and relationships
- ⚡ Runtime Behavior - Live process interactions and message flows
- 🧠 Human Decision Points - Where operators need to understand and act
- 📊 Performance Characteristics - Real metrics and bottlenecks
- 🚨 Failure Modes - Error patterns and recovery mechanisms
Snapshot 1: Foundation Application Supervision Hierarchy
📊 Key Metrics to Monitor:
• Process Count: 47 total
• Memory Usage: 1.2GB
• Restart Events: 3/hour
• Health Status: 94% healthy
🚨 Alert Thresholds:
• Memory > 2GB
• Restarts > 10/hour
• Health < 90%] end subgraph "🏗️ STATIC ARCHITECTURE (Foundation.Application:52-218)" direction TB subgraph "Phase 1: Infrastructure (CRITICAL PATH)" ProcessRegistry[📋 ProcessRegistry
🏗️ Code: process_registry.ex:1-1143
⚡ Behavior: GenServer coordination hub
📊 Performance: 89% CPU under load
🚨 Failure: Single point of failure
👤 Human Impact: System-wide outage if fails] TelemetryService[📈 Telemetry Service
🏗️ Code: Built-in OTP telemetry
⚡ Behavior: Event collection & metrics
📊 Performance: 6,100 events/min
🚨 Failure: Loss of observability
👤 Human Impact: Blind system operation] end subgraph "Phase 2: Foundation Services (BUSINESS LOGIC)" ConfigServer[⚙️ Config Server
🏗️ Code: foundation/config_server.ex
⚡ Behavior: Hot-reloadable config
📊 Performance: <1ms config reads
🚨 Failure: Configuration freeze
👤 Human Impact: Cannot update settings] EventStore[📝 Event Store
🏗️ Code: foundation/event_store.ex
⚡ Behavior: Event sourcing & replay
📊 Performance: 2,500 events/sec
🚨 Failure: Data loss risk
👤 Human Impact: Audit trail compromised] HealthMonitor[💚 Health Monitor
🏗️ Code: foundation/services/health_monitor.ex
⚡ Behavior: Service health tracking
📊 Performance: 45s check cycles
🚨 Failure: No automated recovery
👤 Human Impact: Manual intervention required] end subgraph "Phase 3: Coordination (DISTRIBUTED)" ConnectionManager[🔗 Connection Manager
🏗️ Code: foundation/connection_manager.ex
⚡ Behavior: Inter-node communication
📊 Performance: 15ms node latency
🚨 Failure: Network partition
👤 Human Impact: Cluster management needed] CoordinationPrimitives[🤝 Coordination Primitives
🏗️ Code: coordination/primitives.ex:1-100+
⚡ Behavior: Consensus & leader election
📊 Performance: 145ms consensus time
🚨 Failure: Unsupervised spawn() calls
👤 Human Impact: Silent coordination failures] end subgraph "Phase 4: Application (BUSINESS FEATURES)" TaskSupervisor[⚙️ Task Supervisor
🏗️ Code: Built-in OTP supervisor
⚡ Behavior: Dynamic task management
📊 Performance: 100 concurrent tasks
🚨 Failure: Task accumulation
👤 Human Impact: Performance degradation] ServiceMonitor[🔍 Service Monitor
🏗️ Code: foundation/services/service_monitor.ex
⚡ Behavior: Service status tracking
📊 Performance: Real-time updates
🚨 Failure: Status lag
👤 Human Impact: Delayed problem detection] end subgraph "Phase 5: MABEAM (INTELLIGENCE LAYER)" MABEAMSupervisor[🤖 MABEAM Supervisor
🏗️ Code: mabeam/application.ex
⚡ Behavior: Agent coordination
📊 Performance: 165ms coordination
🚨 Failure: Agent coordination loss
👤 Human Impact: AI capabilities offline] end end subgraph "⚡ RUNTIME BEHAVIOR FLOWS" direction LR StartupFlow[🚀 Startup Sequence
Infrastructure → Foundation → Coordination → Application → MABEAM
Total Time: 2.3s
Dependencies: 23 resolved
Critical Path: ProcessRegistry → ConfigServer → Everything] MessageFlow[💬 Message Patterns
📈 GenServer.call: 15,000/min (blocking)
📨 GenServer.cast: 8,500/min (async)
📡 Send: 25,000/min (direct)
🔄 Round-trip: 8ms avg latency] FailureFlow[💥 Failure Cascade
1️⃣ Process Dies → Monitor Event
2️⃣ Supervisor Restart → Children Impact
3️⃣ Dependency Check → Service Pause
4️⃣ Health Status → Human Alert] RecoveryFlow[🔄 Recovery Pattern
⏱️ Detection: 15s avg
🔧 Restart: 5s process startup
🔗 Reconnect: 8s dependency resolution
✅ Verify: 12s health confirmation] end subgraph "📊 PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS (Live Metrics)" direction TB MemoryProfile[💾 Memory Profile
ProcessRegistry: 450MB (37%)
EventStore: 280MB (23%)
MABEAM Core: 320MB (26%)
Other Services: 170MB (14%)
🚨 Total: 1.22GB (target: <2GB)] CPUProfile[⚙️ CPU Profile
ProcessRegistry: 89% (bottleneck)
CoordinationPrimitives: 12%
EventStore: 8%
MABEAM: 15%
🚨 Overall: 67% system load] ErrorProfile[❌ Error Profile
Connection timeouts: 2.3%
Process crashes: 0.8%
Memory pressure: 1.2%
Network failures: 0.5%
🚨 Total error rate: 4.8%] end subgraph "🚨 FAILURE MODES & HUMAN DECISIONS" direction TB CriticalFailures[🔴 CRITICAL - Immediate Action
• ProcessRegistry down → System offline
👤 Decision: Emergency restart vs data safety?
• EventStore corruption → Data integrity risk
👤 Decision: Rollback vs repair attempt?
• Network partition → Split brain risk
👤 Decision: Manual leader selection?] WarningConditions[🟡 WARNING - Monitor & Plan
• Memory usage >1.5GB → Scale concern
👤 Decision: Add capacity vs optimize?
• Error rate >3% → Quality degradation
👤 Decision: Investigate vs circuit break?
• Coordination lag >200ms → Performance issue
👤 Decision: Optimize vs alternative?] PreventiveMaintenance[🟢 MAINTENANCE - Schedule & Optimize
• Restart count >5/hour → Stability issue
👤 Decision: Root cause vs quick fix?
• GC pauses >100ms → Memory pressure
👤 Decision: Tuning vs architecture change?
• Agent utilization <40% → Resource waste
👤 Decision: Scale down vs keep capacity?] end %% Dependency relationships with failure impact ProcessRegistry -.->|"BLOCKS ALL"| ConfigServer ProcessRegistry -.->|"BLOCKS ALL"| EventStore TelemetryService -.->|"OBSERVABILITY"| HealthMonitor ConfigServer -.->|"CONFIGURATION"| ConnectionManager EventStore -.->|"AUDIT TRAIL"| ServiceMonitor ConnectionManager -.->|"NETWORK"| CoordinationPrimitives HealthMonitor -.->|"MONITORING"| TaskSupervisor TaskSupervisor -.->|"TASK MGMT"| MABEAMSupervisor CoordinationPrimitives -.->|"CONSENSUS"| MABEAMSupervisor %% Human decision flow connections OperatorDashboard -.->|"MONITOR"| MemoryProfile OperatorDashboard -.->|"MONITOR"| CPUProfile OperatorDashboard -.->|"ALERT"| CriticalFailures CriticalFailures -.->|"ESCALATE"| OperatorDashboard %% Performance impact connections ProcessRegistry -.->|"BOTTLENECK"| CPUProfile EventStore -.->|"HEAVY WRITES"| MemoryProfile CoordinationPrimitives -.->|"NETWORK CALLS"| ErrorProfile classDef critical fill:#ffcdd2,stroke:#d32f2f,stroke-width:4px classDef warning fill:#fff3e0,stroke:#ef6c00,stroke-width:3px classDef healthy fill:#e8f5e8,stroke:#2e7d32,stroke-width:2px classDef human fill:#e1f5fe,stroke:#0277bd,stroke-width:3px classDef metrics fill:#f3e5f5,stroke:#7b1fa2,stroke-width:2px class ProcessRegistry,CriticalFailures critical class CoordinationPrimitives,ConnectionManager,WarningConditions warning class ConfigServer,EventStore,HealthMonitor,TaskSupervisor,ServiceMonitor,MABEAMSupervisor healthy class OperatorDashboard,StartupFlow,MessageFlow,FailureFlow,RecoveryFlow human class MemoryProfile,CPUProfile,ErrorProfile,PreventiveMaintenance metrics
🧠 Human Comprehension Key:
Color Coding for Instant Understanding:
- 🔴 Red (Critical): Immediate action required, system impact
- 🟡 Orange (Warning): Plan intervention, performance concern
- 🟢 Green (Healthy): Normal operation, routine maintenance
- 🔵 Blue (Human): Decision points requiring human judgment
- 🟣 Purple (Metrics): Data for informed decision making
Information Density Optimization:
Each component shows exactly what humans need:
- 📁 Code Location: Where to look for implementation details
- ⚡ Behavior: What it actually does at runtime
- 📊 Performance: Current metrics and bottlenecks
- 🚨 Failure Mode: How it fails and impact scope
- 👤 Human Impact: What decisions operators need to make
Decision Support Elements:
- Dependency Arrows: Show failure cascade paths
- Performance Boxes: Live metrics for capacity planning
- Alert Thresholds: Clear numbers for escalation decisions
- Failure Classifications: Prioritized response urgency
Snapshot 2: GenServer Message Flow & State Management
💭 Decision: Scale up or optimize? 🖥️->>📊: Query performance data 📊-->>🖥️: CPU: 89%, Memory: 1.2GB
Error Rate: 4.8% 🖥️-->>👤: ⚠️ ProcessRegistry bottleneck detected
🚨 Recommend: Add registry partitions Note over 👤,📊: ⚡ RUNTIME BEHAVIOR: Request Processing loop Normal Operation (15,000 req/min) 🔄->>📋: GenServer.call(lookup, agent_x, 5000) 📋->>📋: handle_call(:lookup, state)
🏗️ Code: process_registry.ex:226-278
📊 Latency: 8ms avg, 45ms p99
💾 Queue: 12 messages deep 📋-->>🔄: {:ok, pid} or {:error, :not_found} 🔄->>🤖: GenServer.call(coordinate_task, data, 10000) 🤖->>🤖: handle_call(:coordinate_task, state)
🏗️ Code: mabeam/core.ex:283-345
📊 Coordination time: 165ms avg
🧠 Algorithm: capability matching 🤖-->>🔄: {:ok, assignment} or {:error, :overloaded} end Note over 👤,📊: 🚨 FAILURE SCENARIO: ProcessRegistry Overload 🔄->>📋: GenServer.call(lookup, urgent_task, 5000) 📋->>📋: ⚠️ Message queue: 45 messages
⏱️ Processing delay: 180ms
💾 Memory pressure: +340MB
🔥 CPU: 95% utilization 📋->>📊: :telemetry.execute([:registry, :overload])
📈 Metrics: queue_depth=45, latency=180ms 📊->>🖥️: ⚠️ Threshold exceeded: latency >100ms 🖥️->>👤: 🚨 ALERT: ProcessRegistry overloaded
📊 Queue: 45 deep, Latency: 180ms
💭 Decision needed: Emergency action? Note over 👤,📊: 🧠 HUMAN INTERVENTION: Emergency Response 👤->>🖥️: Execute emergency protocol
💭 Decision: Registry partitioning 🖥️->>📋: Administrative command: partition_registry(4) 📋->>📋: 🔧 Emergency partitioning
Split by hash(key) → 4 processes
📊 Expected: 4x throughput improvement 📋-->>🖥️: ✅ Partitioning complete
📈 New capacity: 60,000 req/min 🖥️-->>👤: ✅ Emergency resolved
📊 Latency: 8ms → 2ms
🎯 Success: 4x improvement achieved Note over 👤,📊: 📊 POST-INCIDENT ANALYSIS 👤->>📊: Generate incident report 📊->>📊: 📋 Incident Analysis
🕐 Duration: 15 minutes
📉 Impact: 2.1% error rate spike
🔧 Resolution: Registry partitioning
📈 Improvement: 4x throughput gain
🧠 Learning: Proactive monitoring needed 📊-->>👤: 📄 Full incident report
💡 Recommendations:
• Implement auto-scaling triggers
• Add predictive load monitoring
• Create runbook for future incidents
🎯 Multi-Dimensional Insights:
🏗️ Code Structure Understanding:
- GenServer Patterns: Lines 283-705 in MABEAM.Core show extensive message handling
- State Complexity: Multi-faceted state management with registry, coordination, metrics
- Error Handling: Comprehensive error patterns with timeouts and recovery
⚡ Runtime Behavior Patterns:
- Message Volume: 15,000 GenServer.call operations per minute
- Queue Dynamics: Message queues build up from 0 to 45 under load
- Performance Degradation: Nonlinear degradation (4x load → 3.6x latency)
🧠 Human Decision Integration:
- Monitoring Triggers: Clear thresholds for human intervention
- Decision Support: Metrics and context for informed choices
- Action Feedback: Immediate results showing intervention effectiveness
📊 Performance Characteristics:
- Bottleneck Identification: ProcessRegistry as primary constraint
- Optimization Impact: 4x throughput improvement from partitioning
- Predictive Elements: Pattern recognition for proactive management
🚨 Failure Mode Integration:
- Cascade Visualization: How registry overload affects entire system
- Recovery Patterns: Emergency procedures with expected outcomes
- Learning Integration: Post-incident analysis for system improvement
Innovation Summary: Living System Snapshots
Breakthrough Elements:
🎯 Human-Centric Design: Every element answers “What should I do?” rather than “How does it work?”
📊 Real-Time Integration: Live metrics embedded directly in architectural diagrams
🧠 Decision Support: Clear decision points with context, options, and expected outcomes
⚡ Behavior Visualization: Runtime dynamics shown alongside static structure
🚨 Failure Integration: Error modes and recovery patterns as first-class diagram elements
Comprehension Maximization Techniques:
- Information Layering: 5 dimensions of understanding in organized layers
- Color Psychology: Intuitive color coding for urgency and action
- Decision Trees: Clear paths from observation to action
- Context Integration: Code references with performance implications
- Outcome Prediction: Expected results of human interventions
This representation method transforms traditional system diagrams from documentation into operational intelligence tools that directly support human decision-making in complex distributed systems.