guides: SNS inspection guide — how to query a live SNS and its canisters

[marc0olo]

Background

The Learn Hub article "How to Inspect an SNS and Its Dapp Canisters" was evaluated during the Learn Hub migration (#208) and intentionally deferred. It was not part of the old portal docs either.

The staging file is at .migration/learn-hub/how-does-icp-work/sns/how-to-inspect-an-sns-and-its-dapp-canisters.md (marked out-of-scope in the final cleanup).

What the guide would cover

A practical how-to for developers building governance tooling or verifying a live SNS deployment:

1. List all deployed SNS instances (query list_deployed_snses on the SNS-W canister qaa6y-5yaaa-aaaaa-aaafa-cai)
2. List all canisters belonging to an SNS (list_sns_canisters on the SNS root)
3. Get full canister status and controller hierarchy (get_sns_canisters_summary on the SNS root)
4. Find an SNS root from a known dapp canister ID
5. Inspect SNS governance neurons (list_neurons on the SNS governance canister)
6. Check token balances (swap, treasury) via icrc1_balance_of

Why it was deferred

• The Learn Hub source uses dfx throughout (banned in this repo). All examples would need to be rewritten for icp canister call.
• The content was never in the old portal developer docs.
• The audience is narrow: developers writing governance tooling or operators verifying their own SNS. Most of the canister hierarchy context is already documented in concepts/sns-framework.md.

When picking this up

• Replace all dfx canister call examples with icp canister call.
• Verify Candid argument syntax against the SNS governance Candid interface in .sources/icskills/ or the on-chain interface.
• Place at docs/guides/governance/inspecting-sns.md and add a sidebar entry under the Governance section.
• Load the technical-documentation and sns-launch skills before writing.