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The tutorial

Eleven guided steps on night one, taught with real incidents running slowly.

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Night one of the campaign is guided. A senior sysadmin called Deniz talks you through it, and her lines arrive in the log stream like everything else — there is no separate tutorial interface, because breaking terminal integrity to teach the terminal would be a strange trade.

The eleven steps

StepWhat it does
1welcomeSets the scene
2ask_statusHas you run status
3explain_screenWalks through the rack, the meters and the log stream
4leak_introInjects a real memory leak; teaches top
5leak_fixWaits for the incident to be resolved
6leak_doneConfirms what happened
7ddos_introInjects a real flood; teaches netstat
8ddos_fixGuides the response, including CIDR notation
9ddos_doneConfirms
10help_introShows help and man
11wrap_upEnds the shift early and introduces the report screen

It teaches with real incidents

The two incidents in the tutorial are the actual memory leak and flood definitions, not simplified stand-ins. What changes is speed: the leak runs at half rate and the flood at a third, giving you room to read.

That matters because the reflex transfers exactly. What you learn on night one is the same incident you will meet on night six — just with less time.

It waits for the outcome, not the keystroke

Step 5 waits for the leak to be resolved, not for one specific command. If there is more than one legitimate way to deal with it, all of them satisfy the step. The tutorial checks that the world got better, which is the same thing the rest of the game checks.

Skipping

Type skip at any point and the tutorial ends. It prints two lines on its way out, reminding you that help exists.

A game saved mid-tutorial resumes at the step you were on. Saves made before this was added simply open with guidance switched off.