Model Playground Overview

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Overview

The Model Playground is Veydra’s central workspace where you build, modify, and test your system dynamics models. It provides an interactive environment with real-time feedback and powerful visualization tools.

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Relationship to Models and Activities

The default playground is the base experience for a model when no explicit activity is selected.

• Model owns lifecycle metadata (title, description, model status, repository)
• Default Playground Settings define how the base playground opens (default mode, available modes, library/discoverability)
• Activities are explicit experiences attached to a model and can override mode behavior with activity-specific configuration

In practice:

1. Open model without activity: model default playground settings are used.
2. Open explicit activity: activity settings apply and can override defaults.

You can edit default playground behavior from the model’s dedicated Playground Settings page.

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Playground Modes

The Model Playground is organized around a mode-based workflow that guides you through the full modeling lifecycle. Each mode focuses on a specific phase and adapts the UI — showing relevant panels, controls, and AI assistant context. Switch modes using the color-coded buttons in the top navigation bar.

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Presentation Mode

A read-only guided experience for learning about a model. Content is displayed as scrollable slides with a sticky table of contents sidebar. Slides can include rich text, embedded videos, quizzes, and buttons that navigate to other modes.

• No editable controls — Model Controls, System Map, and Code Editor are hidden
• AI Assistant adapts with presentation-specific prompts like “Take a Quick Quiz” and “Summarize this model”
• Ideal for onboarding, classroom use, or sharing insights with stakeholders

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Design Mode

The primary building mode where all structural changes happen. Parameter changes in Design mode update the baseline configuration that applies across all scenarios. See the dedicated Design Mode page for details.

• Model Editor Panel — Full access to all sliders (stocks, flows, parameters, simulation settings)
• Stock-Flow Diagram — Fully expanded with Flow, Causal, Params, and Loops tabs
• Code Editor — Direct Python code editing with Pyodide execution panel
• Charts are hidden so you can focus on model structure

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Calibrate Mode

Fine-tune your model to match historical or real-world data. See the dedicated Calibration page for details.

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Experiment Mode

Run what-if scenarios using your calibrated baseline. Slider changes only affect the current scenario’s post-intervention behavior — the baseline stays fixed for comparison.

• Model Controls — Shows parameter sliders (not simulation settings) with save/load scenario support
• Compare Mode — Enabled by default, showing baseline vs. scenario on charts
• Scenario Selector — Save, load, rename, and delete named scenarios
• Specialized visualizations — Gantt charts, wait-time scatter plots, spatial visualizations (for applicable models)

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Decide Mode (Pro)

Compare multiple saved scenarios side-by-side to make strategic decisions. Automatically selects the baseline plus up to two user scenarios for comparison.

• Multi-Scenario Selector — Choose which scenarios to overlay on charts
• Multi-Stock Chart Area — All stocks shown with scenario overlays
• Analysis Card — Aggregated comparison metrics across scenarios
• System Map is fully hidden to maximize chart space

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Mode Availability

Not all modes appear for every model. The available modes are determined by the model’s metadata: When an explicit activity is opened, activity mode rules can further constrain or override this default availability.

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AI Assistant Per Mode

The AI Assistant panel automatically adapts to the current mode with a matching color theme, contextual welcome message, and mode-specific action buttons. For example, Design mode offers “Start a guided tutorial” while Decide mode offers “Strategy Comparison” and “Risk Analysis”.

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Key Components

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Workflow Example

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Next Steps