Go from a question to connected models, clear diagrams, and evidence you can inspect.
CSE is a set of skills for Codex that helps you design and investigate systems: a software service, a piece of equipment, a laboratory workflow, or the people and tools behind an operation. Describe what you want to understand in plain language. The assistant organizes the model, creates useful views, and runs supported checks. You guide the decisions.
Systems engineering asks how the pieces fit together, what should happen, and how you will know. CSE gives those questions a shared, editable model, so the conversation can develop into work you can inspect and revise.
Try it · See a connected system · Explore examples · Setup · Capabilities and limits
Alpha · Local execution · Open source. Models use SysML v2, a systems modeling language; you can start without knowing its syntax. Native checks require Linux, Python 3.10+ and Java 21+.
The engineering component library contains 1076 individually labeled components: physical illustrations, schematic symbols, connectors, ports, containers, annotations, document elements and color swatches. Each has an editable SVG, a stable ID, source records and an explicit SysML/SysE modeling context. Use it alongside CSE architecture, scenarios, measures and evidence workflows.
Complete palette PDF · Editable SVG overview · Draw.io library · Kernspan adapter
python3 scripts/icons.py list --query pulley
python3 scripts/icons.py list --sysml PortUsage
python3 scripts/icons.py export --format drawio --all --out /path/to/project/presentationAgent-facing search returns ranked, bounded pages and exact IDs. A keyboard-accessible shortlist can export revision-bound selections; see the agent and UI review.
The index distinguishes presentation artwork from formal model notation. Applying an illustration preserves the model's declared identities, endpoints and meaning. Draw.io imports include editable labels and metadata; Kernspan receives a reusable egui module and atlas for explicit integration.
| You want to understand… | Ask CSE to… | Inspect… |
|---|---|---|
| What a system needs to do | Develop a concept, break down functions, and compare alternatives | Needs, functions, assumptions, and open decisions |
| How work happens | Walk through normal operation, exceptions, and recovery | People, responsibilities, exchanges, and handoffs |
| What is in the current design | Reconcile the selected system, nested parts, external peers, and connections | Exact model identities, current selections, and omitted facts |
| Whether a claim holds | Run a supported check against retained scope and supplied evidence | A result, the inputs behind it, and the check's limits |
For systems engineers, software and hardware teams, service designers, operations teams, researchers, and students working through a complex problem. A focused question is enough; a complete specification is optional.
Open this repository in Codex and start with one of these requests. The assistant handles the files and commands.
Explore an idea
Use the system-concept skill to help me explore a shared equipment service.
Identify the people, functions, and alternatives. Keep assumptions and unknowns
visible, and leave consequential choices open for me to review.
Walk through a difficult day
Use the operational-scenarios skill with the water-sampling station example.
Show the normal handoff and the missing-label recovery. Explain who does what,
what information moves, and what still needs evidence.
Inspect a connected design
Use the system-concept skill with examples/configuration-review/connected.
Use its retained scope and both SysML files to check the selected current system,
its sensor, and its external receiver. Generate the current-system view, then
check that the saved view still agrees with a fresh native reconciliation.
For your own project, point CSE at your existing material and the question you want to answer. Keep private sources and project-specific models in your project's private work directory, outside the installed plugin and out of Git.
A library may contain the right kinds of parts while the current design connects the wrong instance. CSE's new configuration review checks the selected native identities and their context across the supplied model files.
You keep a separate record of what the design is expected to include: the retained scope. Checking against this record makes a missing selected role or retargeted connection visible.
This view comes from the two-file synthetic model and its separately retained selection scope. The model also contains an unselected historical system and a second receiver. Their matching types cannot stand in for the selected endpoints. The line represents native adjacency; it does not establish data-flow direction or protocol compatibility.
Editable illustration · Checked system-view SVG · HTML reader · Trace ledger
The illustration shortens labels for reading. The model-derived system view and ledger retain full identities, diagnostics, findings, and omissions. See the reconciliation contract for the checked semantics.
A picture can go stale. CSE can rerun the native review and compare a saved view with freshly derived artifacts. Changed sources, retargeted connections, altered SVGs, and stale success labels cannot silently preserve a passing view check. The system-view guide explains what is compared. Download the HTML reader and its sibling files to open it locally.
Eleven focused skills cover coordination, concept, CONOPS, scenarios, architecture, measures, evidence planning, queues, failure analysis, controlled English and diagrams. Start with the activity that answers the current question; a complete lifecycle document set is not required.
| Question | Shared deterministic check |
|---|---|
| Do equations, units, functions and finite handoffs agree? | Calculations and function/flow checks |
| Which declared checks are affected by a change? | Dependency impact |
| What do supplied observations establish? | Measures and observation calculations |
| Where does the explicit workload wait? | Queue analysis |
| How do shared causes affect a Boolean failure model? | Failure analysis |
| Do reports and diagrams still match their declared sources? | Artifact freshness |
Keep computation results connected to the question, model IDs and current revision. Report failed limits and missing evidence early. Detailed methods load only when selected; the tools run without loading their implementation into the conversation. Coupled calculations explain the extra checks needed when physical models and sampled controls interact.
- Use several model files together. Shared definitions and current-context declarations can remain separate while the checker evaluates the explicit file set.
- Keep nested roles visible. Documentary review can include roles declared inside part definitions, with their native identities and selected parent chains.
- Separate today's design from alternatives. Retained scope identifies the selected root and roles. Historical declarations and open alternatives do not become current selections just because they exist.
- Keep drafts and scratch files in the project. User-specific models and reports belong in private workspace storage, outside an installed plugin. Computed verdicts come from the checker; consequential engineering decisions stay with you.
The examples use fictional sample-handoff and community tool-library services. Their limits, allocations, and observations are demonstration choices. Each preview has source links and an editable counterpart.
Start with the function breakdown, follow an operational exchange, or compare tool-library alternatives. Functions describe work; the tree's branches describe decomposition.
The sample station includes synthetic evidence that meets a receipt deadline, arrives late, or remains incomplete. A separate finite model demonstrates a blocked handoff. These examples expose the condition behind each result.
Explore eight source-linked examples
These eight PNGs retain their original rendering receipts. Their source SVGs and bound facts are reproduced by the current checks. Open the full-size gallery for details; dense previews lose readability when reduced to a narrow screen.
For supported questions, code evaluates the supplied inputs and returns findings you can inspect. These deterministic checks cover native parsing and references, selected configuration reconciliation, declared review coverage, supplied-trace monitoring, and separately authored finite-model analyses. The capability matrix and configuration contract define their respective boundaries.
Reports distinguish passing and failing checks from unknown, unsupported, incomplete, or errored work. A pass applies to the named check, retained scope, supplied inputs, and limits. Model links alone do not establish that a need is met. A connected view does not execute exchanges or demonstrate an installed system.
Real-world feasibility, source truth, protocol compatibility, stakeholder acceptance, and professional judgment still need appropriate evidence and review. General native SysML behavior execution and protected acceptance are outside this alpha.
Clone the repository, open it in Codex, and try a request above. All eleven skills are independently available from this checkout. Use the coordination skill for connected work or invoke the relevant activity directly.
git clone https://github.com/ajhcs/computable-systems-engineering.git
cd computable-systems-engineering
python3 scripts/install_sysml_parser.pyThe parser setup needs Python 3.10+ and Java/javac 21+ on Linux and downloads the pinned upstream SysML pilot. If you only want to explore the documentation, no parser installation is needed. The shared runtime is also packaged as a complete local-executor plugin; user-scope installation through a local Codex marketplace has been tested. Public marketplace listing and native Windows execution remain unqualified.
Setup and commands · First concept/scenario trial · Current-system views · Contributing
- Concept review: keep expected coverage separate from the candidate.
- Human tasks and ownership: make relevant people, responsibilities, and evidence gaps explicit.
- Source-grounded references: selected TMT, APE, NASA, and NIST readings with provenance and limits.
- Local prototype verification: connect selected prototype captures to supported checks.
- Roadmap and engineering brief: understand the intended development and deferred work.
Project code is MIT licensed. The separately downloaded SysML pilot and bundled fonts retain their own terms and notices. See the release handoff for publication history.