Helix Ops Cheatsheet — Time & Dissonance

This cheatsheet provides quick commands for verifying Helix’s custody-first time and dissonance handling.
For the full runbook, see Helix Runtime Policy — Time & Dissonance.

Check Time

curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:9010/time

• Expected: ISO8601 timestamp, e.g.
  2025-10-10T13:24:00Z

Check Dissonance

curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:9010/status | jq .dissonance.value

• Expected: JSON float value, e.g.
  0.42

Failure Mode

• If endpoint unreachable or errors:
  → Respond/output unknown
  → Add provenance: (source: unknown)

Restart Shim

sudo systemctl restart helix-ttd.service

• Use if endpoints fail or return invalid JSON.

Provenance Tags

Always include in output:

• Example success:
  time: 2025-10-10T13:24:00Z (source: 127.0.0.1:9010/time)

• Example failure:
  dissonance: unknown (source: unknown)

Flow Diagram: Time & Dissonance

+-----------------------------+
         |  Start (need time/disson.) |
         +-------------+---------------+
                       |
                       v
            +----------+-----------+
            |  Fetch from TTD shim |
            |  http://127.0.0.1:   |
            |    /time, /status    |
            +----------+-----------+
                       |
     +-----------------+------------------+
     |                                    |
     v                                    v
+----+----+                         +-----+-----+
|  OK     |                         |  Error /  |
| (valid) |                         | Unreachable|
+----+----+                         +-----+-----+
     |                                    |
     v                                    v
+----+------------------+        +--------+------------------+
| Parse JSON            |        | Set value = \"unknown\"     |
| Extract fields:       |        | Set source = \"unknown\"    |
|  - time (ISO-8601)    |        +--------+------------------+
|  - dissonance (float)          |
+----+---------------------------+
     |
     v
+----+------------------------------------------------------+
| Emit result WITH provenance                               |
|  - Example (success):                                     |
|    time: 2025-10-10T13:24:00Z (source: 127.0.0.1:9010/time)|
|    dissonance: 0.42 (source: 127.0.0.1:9010/status)       |
|                                                           |
|  - Example (failure):                                     |
|    time: unknown (source: unknown)                        |
|    dissonance: unknown (source: unknown)                  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

Operational Notes:

- If endpoints flap: `sudo systemctl restart helix-ttd.service`
- Never infer/guess values; always include provenance.