Getting started
Introduction
What the Kymoscope SDK is, how it differs from the Kymoscope app, and how it is put together.
The Kymoscope SDK is the Kymoscope data engine and its charts, without the app around them. You get the same capabilities the Kymoscope app is built on, as an API, and you build the interface your product needs.
The app and the SDK
The Kymoscope app is the finished product: a source rail, a datasets drawer, menus, dialogs and worksheets, ready for engineers to use. The SDK ships none of that UI. It ships the engine underneath it:
- Importing files and whole folders, including files too large for memory (DuckDB-WASM, out of core).
- Datasets split into laps, overlaid, recoloured and shifted in time.
- Worksheets of charts with a shared X axis and linked zoom.
- 27 chart kinds, from multi-band time series to spectrograms, control charts and Sankey diagrams.
- Math channels: formulas over columns that behave like real columns.
- End-to-end encrypted live streams, and streams your page feeds itself.
- Workspace, worksheet and chart import and export as JSON.
- Plan limits enforced by the engine, reported to you as events.
Your product decides how users reach each of these: your own Import folder button, your own live sessions list, your own chart menu, your own way to load a saved workbook. Charts are bare plotting surfaces that you mount into your layout.
How it fits together
| Piece | Role |
|---|---|
createEngine() | Holds all state (datasets, worksheets, charts, math channels, live connections) and every operation on it. No DOM. |
engine.charts.mount() | Renders one chart into an element you own. Reports its status and user gestures as events. |
@kymoscope/sdk/react | Optional React bindings: a provider, a state hook and a <Chart> component. |
kymoscope-embed.js | A standalone build exposing window.Kymoscope.createEngine for pages without a bundler or without React. |
| Your backend | Serves files and saved workspaces, stores math channels if you want them persisted, and mints watch tickets for live streams. |
| Kymoscope relay | Forwards encrypted live frames from publishers to viewers. It never sees keys or plaintext. |
Where to go next
- Quickstart: data in, a chart on screen, in five minutes.
- Core concepts: engine state, worksheets, chart models and mounted views.
- Building your own UI: a toolbar, an Add chart menu and a context menu.
- API reference: every option, method and type.