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Alert integrations

Alert integrations are the mechanism by which Skynet automatically generates observations from external alert streams — GRB notices, kilonova candidates, transient broker outputs, and anything else that should trigger telescope time without a human in the loop.

Status — work in progress. The data model for alert integrations is in place (AlertIntegration, AlertSource, AlertSubscription, plus the HERMESAlertIntegration and NasaGCNAlertIntegration concrete classes), and the front-page marketing copy references brokers like ZTF, Fermi, and LSST — but the end-to-end wiring is not yet shipping in production. This page is the roadmap stub; it will be filled in as the feature lands.

What's modeled today

The data model captures three pieces of the eventual flow:

  • AlertIntegration — a connector to an external alert source. Polymorphic on integrationType; concrete subclasses for HERMES and NASA GCN are defined.
  • AlertSource — a logical alert stream — e.g. "GCN GRB notices," "HERMES kilonova candidates."
  • AlertSubscription — an observer's (or observatory's) subscription to a source, with a template observation that gets instantiated when alerts fire.

The schemas are available for inspection now even though the runtime layer that converts incoming alerts into observations is still being built:

Expected shape (roadmap)

When alert integrations ship, the owner-side workflow will look roughly like this:

  1. Enable an integration on your organization or telescope. Pick the alert source (HERMES, GCN, etc.) and configure any per- source credentials or filter parameters.
  2. Define what your telescope is willing to respond to. Filters on the alert source — minimum brightness, sky region, specific event types — so your telescope only triggers on alerts you actually want.
  3. Configure who gets the observations. Alerts can fund observations through a specific observing account (typically a dedicated ToO queue) so urgent follow-up doesn't compete with normal science time.
  4. Set up the response template. A pre-canned observation that gets instantiated when an alert matches — target substituted from the alert, configuration inherited.

For the observer-side view (subscribing to alerts and what shows up in your dashboard), see Alerts.

What to do today

  • If you have a use case that needs alert-driven observations now, reach out to the Skynet team. The infrastructure exists in pieces; a manual path may be feasible while the integrated UX matures.
  • Watch this page for updates as the feature graduates from WIP to shipping.