Rivet usage at CMS

In this talk an overview of Rivet and its usage at the CMS experiment is presented. Rivet stands for ''Robust Independent Validation of Experiment and Theory'' and is used for optimizing and validating Monte Carlo event generators. By using the results of published analyses, distributions of the simulation can be compared to experimental measurements (corrected for detector effects). This gives insight into the agreement on the particle-level. Starting off with an introduction to the Rivet environment, the purpose of this tool in modern particle physics is explained. Before taking a closer look at the analysis structure, the software necessary to get comparisons is outlined. Analysis implementations are discussed using code examples, showcasing the powerful framework that Rivet provides. A few selected final distributions displaying both Monte Carlo generated events and recorded data are presented, showing the potential to perform particle-level comparisons.