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The Nerve Centre is a live KPI dashboard that surfaces every metric Vortex IQ AI OS tracks across the merchant’s connected sources. The unit of work inside the Nerve Centre is the card, sometimes called a pulse. This page explains what a card is, what metadata each card carries, how cards group into per-connector tabs, and why the catalogue is the size it is (6,034 cards across over 200 connectors in the AI OS catalogue at the time of writing).

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What a card is

A card is a single named KPI rendered against a single data source over a defined time window. One card represents one question the merchant might ask of one connector. Examples:
  • Shopify, Total Revenue, last 30 days vs prior 30 days.
  • Stripe, Authorisation rate, last 7 days.
  • Google Ads, Cost per acquisition, last 90 days.
  • Datadog, Checkout latency p95, real-time refresh on render.
The card is the unit because it is the smallest object that has a stable identity, a stable query, and a stable visual treatment. The merchant trusts a card the same way they trust a row in a financial report: same definition every day, same window logic every day, same colour rules every day. A card is not a chart. A chart is one of the things a card can render (line, bar, donut, gauge, sparkline). A card is also not a query. A query is what the card runs to fetch its data. The card is the wrapper: identity, metadata, query binding, render rules, alert binding, sentiment binding. The “pulse” framing is intentional. Every card has a heartbeat: it ticks at its refresh cadence, it changes colour when the underlying data changes direction, and it raises an alarm when it crosses a threshold. The Nerve Centre is the wall of pulses for the entire connected business.

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Card metadata

Every card carries a fixed metadata shape, written into the card’s frontmatter and read by the Nerve Centre renderer, the alert engine, Vortex Mind (when reasoning over the same data), Ask Viq (when answering questions about the metric), and the documentation generator (when authoring this catalogue).
FieldPurposeExample
idStable identifier scoped to the connector. Persists across renames.total_revenue, auth_rate, cost_per_acquisition
labelHuman-readable name shown on the card.”Total Revenue”, “Auth Rate”, “Cost per Acquisition”
categoryThe grouping the card sits under in the connector tab.”Revenue & Growth”, “Email & Retention”, “Ads & Acquisition”
chart_typeHow the card renders.kpi, line, bar, gauge, donut, table
formatHow values display.currency, percent, number, decimal, duration_ms, mixed
rolesWho the card is for.[owner, marketing, finance, operations, engineering, agency]
time_windowDefault lookback for the card. See time windows.T, 24H, 7D, 30D, 90D, RT, 30D vsP
alert_triggerThreshold or rule that fires an alert. See alert system.drop >15% vsP, auth_rate < 0.85, latency_p95 > 2500ms
sentiment_keyThe colour rule used to mark a value good, bad, or warning. See sentiment model.revenue_trend, auth_rate, latency
has_thresholdWhether the card has a configurable threshold.true, false
tierCard class for indexing and dashboard prominence. See hero, cross-channel, tiers.hero, standard
data_typeWhere the data comes from and how it is computed. See data freshness.Native, API-derived, Derived, Real-time, Backdated, Hist, Cost
cross_channelWhether the card joins data across more than one connector.true, false
derive_fromWhen cross_channel = true, the source connectors.[shopify, stripe], [shopify, google_ads]
same_metric_onOther connectors that publish the same logical metric (so agencies can navigate the catalogue).[bigcommerce.total_revenue, adobe_commerce.total_revenue]
reconciles_withOther cards on related connectors that should track close to this one.[stripe.stripe_total_revenue, paypal.pp_total_volume]
query_keyThe named query the card runs against the data store.revenue_summary, auth_rate_query, cpa_query
vendor_urlCross-link out to the vendor’s docs or admin.https://www.shopify.com
manifestThe YAML manifest the card was registered from.config/vortex_mind/manifests/shopify.yaml
The frontmatter is identical across the public documentation card pages and the internal Nerve Centre runtime registry. That alignment is deliberate. The merchant who reads the docs page for Total Revenue on Shopify is reading the same metadata that the Nerve Centre uses to render the live tile and that Vortex Mind uses to anchor a diagnosis when the metric moves.

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Per-connector grouping

The Nerve Centre dashboard is organised as a row of connector tabs across the top: Shopify, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, Stripe, PayPal, Klaviyo, Google Analytics, Google Ads, Datadog, New Relic, Jira, Dotdigital, and so on through every connector the merchant has wired up. The order of the tabs follows the merchant’s connection order, with the most recently connected connector on the right and the most recently used on the left. Each connector tab contains a grid of cards grouped by category. A typical Shopify tab carries categories such as Revenue & Growth, Order Patterns, Customer Mix, Inventory & Fulfilment, Discount & Margin, Refund & Recovery, Subscriptions, Channel Mix. A typical Datadog tab carries categories such as Infrastructure Monitoring, Application Performance, Log Management, Alerting & Incidents. Within a category, cards render in a 1, 2, or 3-column grid depending on viewport width and chart_type. Hero cards (see hero, cross-channel, tiers) render larger to draw the eye. Standard cards render in the secondary grid below the hero row. The grouping is not aesthetic alone. It mirrors the way the connector’s vendor admin presents its own data, so a merchant who already knows the Stripe Dashboard or the GA4 Reports menu finds the equivalent metric in the same logical place inside the Nerve Centre.

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The catalogue at the time of writing

The Vortex IQ Nerve Centre catalogue tracks 6,034 cards across 215 connectors. The largest catalogues by connector are:
  • BigCommerce, 115 cards.
  • Google Analytics 4, 100 cards.
  • Amazon Ads, 102 cards.
  • ShipBob, 87 cards.
  • Stripe, 80 cards.
  • Datadog, 80 cards.
  • Website Performance (PageSpeed + CrUX), 79 cards.
  • Shopify, 78 cards.
  • Amazon Selling Partner, 77 cards.
  • PayPal, 77 cards.
  • CyberSource, 76 cards.
  • Google Ads, 75 cards.
  • New Relic, 75 cards.
Smaller connectors carry a 13 to 30 card baseline that covers the metric set the merchant is most likely to ask about (volume, conversion, cost, latency, error rate, deliverability) without surfacing the long-tail metrics that only a power user of that vendor would recognise. For the full breakdown see the Nerve Centre catalogue landing.

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Card classification: hero, cross-channel, standard

Not every card is equal. The catalogue is consciously triaged into three classes that drive both dashboard prominence and how the card is indexed in Vortex IQ documentation:
  • Hero cards are the top three to five questions a merchant asks of a connector on a typical day. Total Revenue, Order Count, Refund Rate, AOV for Shopify; Authorisation Rate, Decline Rate by Reason, Successful Charges for Stripe; CPA, ROAS, Impression Share for Google Ads. Hero cards render larger, sit at the top of the connector tab, and are the default cards in the executive dashboard view.
  • Cross-channel cards join data across more than one connector. These are the kill-shots: cards no single tool in the merchant’s stack can produce on its own. Stockout with Active Spend (Google Ads + Shopify), Customer Recovery Opportunity (Klaviyo + Shopify + Stripe), Refund Cliff vs Decline Spike (Stripe + Shopify). Cross-channel cards are flagged with a special icon in the Nerve Centre UI and route directly into Vortex Mind cross-channel reports when the card is clicked.
  • Standard cards are the long-tail that fills out the catalogue. They are not less important, they are less universally relevant. A merchant running Datadog cares deeply about specific Datadog metrics; a Shopify merchant who has not connected Datadog never sees them.
Hero cards are capped at roughly 15 percent of the catalogue. The cap is intentional. A wall of “everything is hero” is a wall the merchant stops reading. Hero density is a tuning parameter; see hero, cross-channel, tiers for the cap logic and the index-wave assignment.

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Where the card surfaces

A single card has more than one place it shows up:
  • The Nerve Centre tile. The live, refreshing visual representation. This is what the merchant sees on the home dashboard.
  • The card’s documentation page. This catalogue. Each card has a 1,500 to 2,500 word page explaining the metric, the calculation, the source field trace, the worked example, sibling cards to read together, the reconciliation against the vendor’s own dashboard, and the FAQs. The doc page is the source of truth for the metric definition.
  • The Vortex Mind anchor node. When Vortex Mind runs a diagnostic, it walks out from the card’s metric ID as the anchor. The card metadata is what tells the diagnostic engine what the metric measures and how to evidence it.
  • The Ask Viq query target. When a merchant asks Ask Viq “what is total revenue this month”, the question resolves to the card with id: total_revenue on the active commerce connector.
  • The alert payload. When an alert fires, the card metadata travels with the alert into the Actions Kanban so the responder has the same context the dashboard tile carries.
  • The Vortex Memory archive. Card states at scheduled intervals (daily, weekly) snapshot into Vortex Memory so longitudinal patterns can be queried after the fact.
A change to the card metadata propagates everywhere. Renaming a card’s label does not break the metric ID, so historical alerts and Vortex Mind findings keep their backlinks. Changing the alert threshold updates the runtime alert engine without breaking the doc page.

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How it relates to other modules

  • Vortex Mind reasons over the same metrics the Nerve Centre renders. When a card crosses its alert threshold, Vortex Mind takes the metric ID as the trigger anchor and walks the connector graph to gather evidence. The card is the question; Vortex Mind is the answer.
  • Ask Viq answers natural-language questions by routing to the right card. “What was my refund rate last week” resolves to the refund_rate card on the active commerce connector. The card metadata is what makes the answer authoritative; Ask Viq cites the card and surfaces the same number the Nerve Centre tile would show.
  • Actions receives alerts from cards. When a card breaches its threshold, an Action is created on the Kanban with the card metadata attached. The owner role on the Action is derived from the card’s roles field.
  • Vortex Memory archives card states over time. Daily morning briefings include a comparison block that reads from yesterday’s archived card values and today’s live values. Weekly and monthly briefings widen the comparison window. The card is the unit being archived.

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FAQ

Why is the catalogue 6,034 cards and not a smaller “best-of” set? A merchant running ShipBob does not care about Klaviyo deliverability metrics, but a merchant running Klaviyo does. The catalogue is the union of every merchant’s relevant metric set, not the intersection. Each merchant sees only the cards for the connectors they have connected. The 6,034 number is the universe; the merchant’s actual workspace renders 200 to 1,500 cards depending on how many connectors are wired. Can a merchant create a custom card? Custom cards are on the roadmap. Today the catalogue is curated and registered by Vortex IQ, with the trade-off being consistent definitions and reconciliation across connectors. When the custom card editor ships, custom cards will live alongside the registered cards in a separate “Custom” category per connector. What if my connector publishes more metrics than the Nerve Centre tracks? File a request with support@vortexiq.ai or open an issue on the connector’s GitHub manifest. Most connectors carry a “register a new card” workflow where the engineering team can add a card to the catalogue inside a release cycle. The card lands in Wave 2 (un-indexed) by default and is promoted to Wave 1 if the metric proves load-bearing. Do all cards refresh at the same cadence? No. Refresh cadence is set by the card’s data_type. Real-time cards refresh on every render. Native and API-derived cards refresh on the connector’s poll cadence. Backdated and Hist cards run on a daily batch. Cost-tier cards (which consume vendor API quota) refresh on a slower cadence. See data freshness. How does a hero card differ visually from a standard card? Hero cards render in a larger tile (typically 2-column or 3-column wide) at the top of the category group. Standard cards render in the smaller grid below. Hero cards also carry a coloured accent border that picks up the sentiment colour. The visual hierarchy reinforces the prioritisation. How are cross-channel cards different from cards that just reference another connector? A cross-channel card runs a query that pulls fields from two or more connector graphs and computes a value that no single connector could compute alone. Stockout with Active Spend requires both the Google Ads spend stream and the Shopify inventory stream, joined by SKU. A card that merely cites another connector in its FAQ is not cross-channel; it is a same-connector card with documentation cross-references. Can I hide cards I do not care about? Yes. Dashboard Settings (visible from the gear icon on any connector tab) lets the merchant toggle cards on or off and reorder categories. Hidden cards still run their queries (so alerts still fire), they are just removed from the visual grid. The toggle is per-profile, so a finance profile can hide ad spend cards and a marketing profile can hide payment latency cards without them stepping on each other.