Turn document · 2026-05-20 America/New_York

# README GitHub Description Refresh

Updated the repository README description so GitHub visitors get an accurate current-state view of Islandflow, including a concise explanation of how print classification works today.

## Summary

Refined the README overview and added a new section describing the live classification pipeline: ingest, parent-event reconstruction, evidence feature extraction, multi-profile scoring, and explainable output artifacts.

## Changes Made

- Kept the heading image untouched at the top of `README.md`.
- Rewrote the opening capability bullets to match current architecture and app surfaces.
- Added a short current-state paragraph describing the event-sourced intelligence flow across NATS/JetStream and ClickHouse.
- Added `How Print Classification Works (Current Approach)`, aligned to `smartmoney.md` and current compute behavior.
- Documented key behavior: abstention, suppression guards, and compatibility surfaces.

## Context

The prior README already contained significant platform detail but needed a more GitHub-friendly “what this app is now” description and a direct explanation of print classification logic, especially the taxonomy-first approach instead of a binary smart-money label.

## Important Implementation Details

- Classification language intentionally tracks the current compute path and event types: `FlowPacket`, `SmartMoneyEvent`, `ClassifierHitEvent`, and `AlertEvent`.
- The new section references `smartmoney.md` for conceptual grounding while staying concise enough for README readers.
- No API contracts or runtime logic changed; this is a documentation-only update.

## Relevant Diff Snippets

Snippets below follow standard unified diff formatting as used by tools such as diffs.com.

    - Islandflow is a Bun + TypeScript monorepo for a personal-use, event-sourced market microstructure research platform focused on:
    - - options prints + NBBO,
    - - off-exchange equity prints,
    - - market news context,
    - - explainable smart-money flow classification,
    + Islandflow is a Bun + TypeScript monorepo for a personal-use, event-sourced market microstructure research platform focused on:
    + - multi-source options/equities/news ingest (synthetic + live adapters),
    + - deterministic parent-event reconstruction over prints, quotes, and NBBO,
    + - explainable participant-style flow classification (not a single binary "smart money" flag),
    + - real-time + historical + replay delivery over REST and WebSocket,

    + ## How Print Classification Works (Current Approach)
    +
    + Islandflow follows the same high-level philosophy captured in [smartmoney.md]:
    + the tape is informative but noisy, and a useful classifier should model multiple
    + participant-style hypotheses instead of forcing every print into one bucket.
    +
    + 1. Ingest + normalize
    + 2. Reconstruct parent events
    + 3. Compute evidence features
    + 4. Score profile hypotheses
    + 5. Emit explainable artifacts

## Expected Impact for End-Users

GitHub readers should understand Islandflow’s current value faster: what the app does, how data flows through the system, and why classification output is multi-profile and evidence-based rather than a simplistic label.

## Validation

- Reviewed patch with `git diff -- README.md`.
- Ran `git diff --check`; no whitespace or patch format issues.
- Verified the heading image line remained present and unchanged at the top of the README.
- No runtime/tests were required because only documentation changed.

## Issues, Limitations, and Mitigations

- README still summarizes classification behavior at a high level; detailed methodology remains in `smartmoney.md` and compute source.
- Because this is docs-only, there is no direct behavioral verification beyond content accuracy checks against current code paths.

## Follow-up Work

- Add a compact architecture diagram in README linking services to public API channels.
- Add a short “classification caveats” subsection for expected false-positive classes.
- Consider adding a dedicated docs page that maps each profile ID to real payload fields and UI representation.