IGMD — use cases

reports, dashboards, live graphics · 11 user stories, each with why a deterministic build wins and where it stands

Every story below leans on one or more of these. Generative output gives a plausible new answer each time; these give the same answer, with a record of why.

Status legendWorks today: built and tested. Small step: the engine is there; a focused addition is needed. Roadmap: a new profile, phase or service.

10Monthly board report from a template

As a finance or ops lead, I want this month's report to be last month's template with new data, where only the numbers, and whatever depends on them, change.

Why deterministic wins: a comparison tells you what moved, and every claim still cites its evidence.

Works todayWorks today (IGMD Phase 3A, 2026-09-19): a template written once, an instance per month pinning that month's data; each claim carries the condition that makes it true, so a claim the data contradicts never renders (IGMD/examples/templates/branch-monthly.igmd.yaml, three months).

11Audit and regulated reporting

As a compliance officer, I want to answer "why is this a bar chart, and why does its axis start at zero?" from the record, and rebuild the exact report three years later.

Why deterministic wins: generative charts can invent values or truncate axes. Here each chart choice has a recorded decision with the rule and its evidence strength, and the package rebuilds byte for byte.

Works todayWorks today.

12AI agents that write reports

As an AI platform, I want my agent to draft a report as IGMD while the compiler rejects bad choices (a pie chart for a precise comparison, an undisclosed low-confidence claim) and renders the rest.

Why deterministic wins: "LLM proposes, compiler disposes", and the output can be checked by its hash.

Works todayWorks today through the MCP tools (local). A public spec (IGMD I8) is what would let outside AIs target it.

13Accessibility you can enforce

As a public agency, I want minimum text size, labels that don't rely on colour alone, and labelled axes to pass or fail inside the build.

Why deterministic wins:

Works todayWorks today for a machine-checked subset of these rules. It is not a full WCAG audit.

14Reproducible figures in science and journalism

As a researcher or data journalist, I want to publish the package (data, source, manifest) so a reviewer can rebuild the exact figure.

Why deterministic wins:

Works todayWorks today.

15Report downloads inside a SaaS product

As a SaaS vendor, I want a "download PDF" for every customer each night, cached by hash, with per-stage cost visible in OpenTelemetry.

Why deterministic wins:

In partThe engine works today; a hosted API is roadmap.

16Interactive dashboards

As an ops team, I want filters and drill-downs declared as actions (state, event, action, each with a static fallback), so any dashboard state can be re-rendered exactly from state plus data.

Why deterministic wins: the chart in an incident review can be reproduced exactly, and a replayed event log gives the same frames. SVGMD would add the event-driven actions; each state is still a deterministic render.

RoadmapRoadmap: IGMD spec Phase 3, with the interaction model sketched in GCMD/docs/12-Primitive-Layer-Note.md.

17Election night and other live data graphics

As a newsroom, I want the results graphic rebuilt from each certified data drop, and the exact graphic that was on air at 22:14 recoverable afterwards.

Why deterministic wins: each drop is a package; "what did we show at 22:14" is a rebuild, not a screenshot hunt. A generative graphic could not be trusted to carry the certified numbers.

Works todayWorks today as snapshots (one compile per data drop). Live updating belongs to the dashboard roadmap.

18Expert-witness exhibits

As a litigation consultant, I want every chart in an expert report to be rebuildable by the other side from the same package, with the reasoning for each chart choice on record.

Why deterministic wins: an exhibit that the opposing expert can rebuild byte for byte, with its decision trace, is hard to attack as manipulated. A generated chart invites exactly that challenge.

Works todayWorks today.

19Sustainability (ESG) disclosures

As a sustainability officer, I want our disclosure charts to follow integrity rules by construction: zero baselines, every claim linked to evidence, uncertain figures disclosed as uncertain.

Why deterministic wins: the defence against "misleading chart" or greenwashing claims is a compile that would have failed. A generated chart has no such guarantee.

Works todayWorks today with the existing integrity rules; an ESG-specific rule pack is a small step.

20Student progress reports

As a school, I want every student's term report laid out by the same rules from the grade data, accessible, and reissued identically if a parent asks for a copy.

Why deterministic wins: fairness in presentation (no student's report is "designed" differently) and exact reissue.

Works todayWorks today (IGMD Phase 3A + 3A.2), one instance per student: tables and charts grow with each student's subjects, and a repeat: block gives each subject its own comment section, ids from the subject name.