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Ask the rig

Ask the rig lets you ask questions in plain English about what the rig has seen and heard. For example: “What aircraft are overhead right now?”

It is read-only. It can describe what the rig knows, but it cannot change anything. It cannot move a camera, change a setting, or clear an alert.

Open it

Select ASK in the sidebar. The panel opens on the right, under the heading Ask the rig.

The ASK button appears only when the rig has an AI model set up to answer questions. If you do not see it, ask your administrator to set one up under Admin → Reasoners.

Operators and administrators can ask questions. Other users can open the panel but see Operators and admins can ask.

Ask a question

  1. Type your question in the box at the bottom. It says Ask about aircraft, drones, ATC, alerts… until you type.
  2. Select Ask, or press Enter.
  3. Wait for the answer. The panel shows Thinking… while it works.

Before your first question, you can select one of the example questions instead of typing.

You can ask follow-up questions. The rig keeps the recent conversation in mind. To start over, select clear.

Example questions

  • What aircraft are overhead right now?
  • Anything unusual in the last hour?
  • Summarize the ATC traffic.
  • Have any drones been seen in the last hour?
  • Were any alerts sent recently?
  • Is the rig healthy?

Check every answer

AI answers can be wrong. To help you check, every answer has a Rig data: line underneath it. The rig counts these numbers itself. The AI does not write them:

  • Drones seen by the camera in the last hour
  • Drone Remote ID broadcasts in the last hour
  • Alerts sent in the last hour
  • Aircraft on ADS-B right now

If the answer and the Rig data: line disagree, trust the Rig data: line.

Where the answer comes from

A short note at the top of the panel tells you which AI answers your questions:

  • Answered on this rig. The AI runs on the rig. The panel says Nothing leaves this rig. The first question after a pause can take a couple of minutes while the model loads.
  • Answered by an online AI service. The panel says that a summary of the rig’s current state is sent to this provider with each question. Your administrator chooses the service.

If the rig cannot answer, the panel shows the reason in amber, for example that no model has been chosen yet. Pass the message to your administrator.

What it knows

Each time you ask, the rig gives the AI a snapshot of:

  • The aircraft it hears on ADS-B right now.
  • Camera detections in the last hour, by class, and the most recent detections with their flight information.
  • The latest scene description from the camera.
  • Radio signals in the last hour, such as ATC, datalink, and Remote ID.
  • Recent alerts that were sent.
  • The rig’s health.

Limits

  • About the last hour. For older history, use Recording and reporting or the event log.
  • Read-only. It cannot take any action.
  • What was said on the radio. When the AI runs on the rig, it does not see the words of ATC transcripts or datalink messages, only who transmitted, when, and on what frequency. This protects against radio messages written to mislead the AI. Read the transcripts yourself in the RF view.
  • Questions up to 1,000 characters.
  • Only about the rig’s data. Questions that aren’t about what the rig has seen and heard (aircraft, drones, targets, alerts, radio traffic) get one fixed reply: “I can only answer questions about what this rig has seen and heard.”
  • It can be wrong. Answers are AI-generated, and the panel says so. Use the Rig data: line, the target card, and the map to confirm anything that matters.

How it keeps answers consistent

From version 0.2.554, Ask the Rig does several things to make its answers repeatable and tied to the rig’s data:

  • Counting questions are answered from the rig’s own counts, with no AI involved: “How many aircraft are up?”, “How many drones?”, “How many alerts?” give the same answer every time for the same data.
  • The AI answers with no randomness (its “temperature” is set to zero), so the same question about the same data gets the same answer.
  • Repeated questions within two minutes, with the same counts, get the same answer.
  • Answers are checked against the rig’s data. If an answer names a callsign, registration, ICAO code or number that the rig has no record of, it isn’t shown. You see “I can’t confirm that from the rig’s data” and what it mentioned instead.