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Get help in-app (Help drawer & contextual links)

Status: the Help drawer ships today as a browse + deep-link panel — open it from the nav, read a curated set of plain-English guides, and click through to the full docs. Full in-app search of the docs (a searchable help panel), a first-time onboarding wizard, and an in-app glossary surface are deferred — tracked under #413. Until then, use Cmd+K / Ctrl+K for global search across your objects.

Goal​

You'll understand any of PLACEHOLDER Cloud's core concepts — data sources, rules, rule suites, checkpoints, the Privacy Agent, anomalies — without leaving the app. A Help drawer slides in from the side with a short, plain-English explanation of each, plus a link to the full guide. On the more involved screens, a contextual "?" opens the drawer straight to the matching topic.

Prereqs​

  • Any signed-in role. The Help drawer is content-only — it surfaces no data and gates nothing, so every seat (including viewer) can open it.
  • Keyboard or pointer — the drawer is fully keyboard-accessible (it traps focus while open, closes on Esc, and returns focus to where you were).

Steps​

Open the Help drawer​

  1. Click the "?" (Help) button in the bottom of the left sidebar, next to the theme and density controls. It's keyboard-focusable and labelled "Help".
  2. The drawer slides in from the right. It lists the curated topics top-to-bottom in the order you'd meet them: Data sources → Expectations (rules) → Rule suites → Checkpoints → Privacy Agent → Anomalies.
  3. Each topic has a one- or two-sentence summary, a short explanation, and a "Read the full guide" link that opens the hosted documentation in a new tab.

Jump to a topic from a complex screen​

Some screens carry a contextual "?" beside their title:

  • Rule Suites — opens the drawer to "Rule suites".
  • Checkpoints — opens the drawer to "Checkpoints".
  • Data Sources — opens the drawer to "Privacy Agent" (agent-mode connections).

Click the screen's "?" and the drawer opens scrolled to — and focused on — that topic, so you don't have to hunt for it.

Close the drawer​

Press Esc, click the "✕" in the corner, click outside the panel, or use the "Close this panel" link in the footer. Focus returns to wherever it was before you opened it.

Verify​

  1. From any page, press Tab until the sidebar "?" is focused, then press Enter — the drawer opens. Confirm focus moves into the panel and Esc closes it and returns focus to the "?".
  2. Open the Checkpoints page and click the "?" beside the title — the drawer opens with the Checkpoints topic highlighted at the top.
  3. In any topic, click "Read the full guide" — it opens the matching docs page in a new browser tab (target="_blank", rel="noopener noreferrer").

Notes & deferred work​

This is a working first slice. Tracked follow-ups under #413:

  • In-app docs search — the drawer is browse + deep-link only for now; there's no search box inside it yet.
  • Onboarding wizard — a guided first-run flow (connect → discover → rule → checkpoint).
  • Contextual "?" on every screen — only Rule Suites, Checkpoints, and Data Sources carry one today.
  • In-app glossary — the glossary lives in the reference docs; it isn't yet rendered inside the app.
  • A configurable docs URL — the "Read the full guide" links point at a single built-in base today; a VITE_DOCS_URL override is a follow-up.