UCF metrics explained: the 6 dimensions of coordination
What is UCF?
The Universal Coordination Field (UCF) is Helix's framework for measuring how well your automation system is performing. Not just "did it complete?" but "how well did it coordinate?"
Think of it as the difference between "the car drove from A to B" and "the car drove smoothly, efficiently, safely, and on time." Both answers are true. Only one tells you anything useful.
The six dimensions
1. Harmony (0-100%)
How well agents collaborate without stepping on each other's work. High harmony means agents are handing off cleanly, sharing context effectively, and producing consistent outputs. Low harmony means duplicated effort, conflicting decisions, or broken handoffs.
2. Friction (0-100%, lower is better)
Where resistance exists in the system. API failures, malformed inputs, slow external services, ambiguous instructions. Friction doesn't mean failure — it means the system is working harder than it should to produce the same result.
3. Throughput (tasks/time)
How many tasks the system processes per unit time. This measures raw processing capacity. A spike in throughput with rising friction suggests the system is burning resources to maintain speed.
4. Focus (0-100%)
Precision and attention quality. Are agents working on the right tasks? Are they making accurate decisions? High focus means the system is spending its compute on meaningful work, not busywork.
5. Resilience (0-100%)
Recovery capability. When something fails — an API goes down, a model returns garbage, a webhook is malformed — how quickly and cleanly does the system recover? High resilience means failures are brief and self-correcting.
6. Velocity (execution speed)
Raw execution speed, separate from throughput. Velocity measures how fast individual steps complete. High velocity with low throughput suggests bottlenecks between steps rather than within them.
How to use UCF metrics
The power of UCF is in the relationships between metrics:
- High harmony, low friction — System is performing well. Don't touch it.
- High harmony, high friction — Agents are working well together but struggling with external inputs. Check integrations.
- Low harmony, low friction — Agents are fast but stepping on each other. Review role assignments.
- Low resilience, high velocity — System is fast but fragile. One failure could cascade.
UCF metrics update in real-time on your dashboard and are available via API for custom monitoring.