Your guide to the current product.

Getting started

1. Create a Layerline account with an email address and a password of at least twelve characters.
2. Open My Companies and create a company. The current blueprint is a SaaS company; choose a name, region, difficulty, and Guided or Independent mode.
3. Enter the Aster workstation and complete the first-run profile setup. The Aster login is a simulated workstation boundary within your Layerline session.
4. Open Service Desk in Aster Browser. Claim a request, inspect its affected systems, make the repair, verify the result, and resolve it.

Current product

Aster provides Terminal, Browser, Files, and Settings. Company applications include Service Desk, Network Center, Access Control, Server Console, Directory, IAM, Asset Manager, Knowledge Base, and Security Console. DNS and firewall changes use BIND and nftables on their owning hosts.

The shell implements a bounded Unix-style simulation. It is not a full Linux virtual machine. Host filesystems, services, users, installed packages, interfaces, routes, and command availability are modeled separately. Servers are headless.

Guided mode provides diagnostic hints. Independent mode reduces those procedural hints. Easy selects the first root-cause variant in each family; higher difficulties select from the supported variants. Deeper differences in topology and incident complexity are still in development.

Commands

Start from the affected workstation and inspect before changing configuration. Connect to a server when you need to administer its service.

whoami
ip addr
ip route
dig portal.layerline.local
ping 10.20.20.10
nc -vz portal.layerline.local 80
ssh web-01
systemctl status webd
journalctl -u webd

Firewall policy on FW-01

ssh fw-01
nft -a list ruleset
nft insert rule inet filter forward ip saddr 10.20.10.31/32 ip daddr 10.20.20.25/32 tcp dport 445 accept
nft delete rule inet filter forward handle <handle>

First matching rule wins. Inspect the handles and scope any allow rule to the required client, destination, protocol, and port. This is a supported subset of nftables syntax.

DNS updates on DNS-01

ssh dns-01
rndc status
printf 'update delete portal.layerline.local A\nupdate add portal.layerline.local 60 A 10.20.20.10\nsend\n' > update.txt
nsupdate -l update.txt

BIND updates support locally authoritative A records and one transaction per file. Verify the service from the original client after the change. Use help in Aster Terminal for installed command guidance.

Scenario catalog

Daily generated work currently covers five families and eight root-cause variants:

• DNS resolution: an incorrect or missing A record. Query from the affected workstation, update DNS, and verify connectivity by hostname.
• Service recovery: a stopped web or SMB service. Inspect status and the journal, restore the service, and test the client’s connection.
• File connectivity: a specific firewall deny. Restore narrowly scoped TCP/445 connectivity and verify it from the affected workstation.
• Application access: a missing group assignment or membership. Restore the approved group entitlement and verify effective access. Direct account exceptions do not satisfy the repair.
• Lost credential: revoke an actual issued badge and verify denial at the entrance reader, keeping the employee’s person and account records active.

Faults exist before their requests become available. Claiming takes ownership without changing infrastructure. Resource locks and repair history suppress equivalent recent incidents. Hidden causes and scoring remain on the server.

Company lifecycle

Each account can own multiple isolated companies. Your company seed chooses employee names and incident parameters. The Nova network blueprint currently stays fixed.

A generated shift requires completion of its admitted work and outstanding critical work. Service Desk shows the current target and readiness. End Shift records a summary, advances the day, and admits eligible incidents. Quiet days can have fewer requests. A five-day week rolls into the next week. Noncritical open work can carry forward.

Files, service state, DNS, firewall rules, directory membership, application assignments, credentials, completed tickets, and shift summaries persist with the company. Window positions and browser layouts do not yet persist. Competency evidence and review-readiness scaffolding exist; practical assessments and automatic promotion are not implemented.

Architecture

Layerline uses Next.js, React, TypeScript, and Tailwind for the product. A framework-free TypeScript engine evaluates shared company state. xterm renders the application terminal; React Flow renders the topology.

Authenticated simulation actions travel through a same-origin WebSocket route. PostgreSQL stores company snapshots and append-only events. Better Auth provides real account sessions and company ownership; Aiven hosts ordinary PostgreSQL.

Public product information belongs on WWW, accounts and company selection belong on Dashboard, and the simulated workstation belongs on App. The marketing previews use a disposable example snapshot and never open a connection to a user’s company.

In development

The next architecture work connects native GUI applications to the Aster process runtime. Graphical remote desktop, Nova Connect workplace communication, richer browser tabs, persistent window layouts, and structured resolution reports remain in development.

Future scenario depth includes topology variation, authenticated file access and ACLs, VPNs, procedural endpoint and SOC families, scheduled arrivals, and multiple interacting root causes. These are not claims about the current catalog.