VeraTracerDocs

Getting started

Install VeraTracer Desktop, open a project, and run a workflow from start to finish. This takes a couple of minutes and needs no account.

1. Install the app

VeraTracer Desktop is available for macOS, Windows and Linux from the Desktop page. It runs entirely on your machine — nothing is uploaded when you run a workflow locally.

2. Open a project

The app opens on a welcome screen rather than a preloaded workspace. From there you can:

  • New — create an empty project folder.
  • Open — point at an existing folder on disk.
  • Sample — open the bundled example, which already contains data/customers.csv and a runnable script.
  • Recents — reopen something you were working on.

The last project you had open is restored on the next launch. If you explicitly close a project, you land back on the welcome screen.

3. Write a workflow

Workflows live in .verascript files. Start the sample and you will find this in analysis.verascript:

let raw = load.csv("data/customers.csv")
let active = filter(raw, status, "active")
let report = select(active, [id, name, region])
export.csv(report, "data/active-customers.csv")

Each line loads, narrows, shapes or writes data. If you would rather not type them, the Commands button inserts a template for any supported statement.

4. Run it

Press Cmd/Ctrl+R, or use the Run button in the editor. As the workflow executes:

  • The Results table fills with the rows produced by the selected checkpoint.
  • The Checkpoint metadata inspector shows row count, column count and duration, plus the change against the previous checkpoint.
  • The Checkpoint run list breaks the run down by step, with the source line and timing for each.

Result panels stay empty until a real run — the numbers you see are always from your data.

5. Re-run only part of it

The blue track in the editor gutter is the checkpoint range. Drag its endpoints, or use the Checkpoint History pane, to choose which portion of the script executes. Everything outside the range keeps the state it already computed.

See Checkpoints for how ranges and branching work in more depth.

Validating without running

Validate checks a script for problems without executing it. Anything it finds is reported in the Problems panel alongside the console.

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