Your first cut

This is the operator-grade walkthrough — what actually happens on the floor between Job created and Cut committed to history. The quickstart covers signup-to-first-cut; this page goes deeper.

Prerequisites

An account with operator role or higher
At least one row in inventory.rolls with status = active
A job in pending status with parts (polygons + quantities) attached
Auto Nest mode (the default). For manual placement, see Free-roam.

Open the job

Navigate to /dashboard/jobs, filter by status = pending, and open the target job. Verify the material spec, customer info, and any attachments in the right sidebar.

If material is unmatched to available inventory, the Assign Roll button is disabled. Add stock via purchase orders first.

Assign material

Click Assign Roll in the job sidebar. The modal queries inventory.rolls and inventory.offcuts filtered by material_id. Offcuts appear only if their remaining_area is sufficient for the smallest required part.

Select by barcode (scan the physical roll’s printed label) or by material filter. This writes job.roll_id and transitions the job to in_progress.

Launch the cutting engine

Click Pack to trigger Auto Nest. The Next.js app opens a WebSocket to the Rust pipeline, sending job_id and roll_id. The engine acquires a Postgres advisory lock on the roll for the duration of the solve.

Typical solve window: 1–3 seconds. The progress indicator shows the current sparrow GLS iteration count.

Review and commit

Inspect:

Yield % — placed part area divided by roll.usable_width × roll.usable_length
Layout preview — SVG render of every placed part with operator-readable labels
Unplaced parts — anything that didn’t fit, with the reason

Click Commit cut to POST /api/cuts/commit. This:

Inserts a row into cut_history with full layout_json
Decrements roll.remaining_area
Generates offcut records with parent_roll_id lineage
Releases the advisory lock
Returns the printable cut list

⚠️

Committed cuts are immutable. There is no UI undo. Corrections require a new job or an admin adjustment, both of which write to audit_log. Confirm the layout before committing.

What happens next

Print the cut list and walk the layout to the cutting table
Scan the job barcode at the table to load the layout
Cut each part in the order shown
Mark each cut part scanned-out via /dashboard/scan
When all parts are cut, the job auto-progresses to completed per the jobs lifecycle