AI assistant
How Ask Orbit works, what data it sees, and how to use it with or without an API key.
Ask Orbit answers questions like "why did signups drop in June?" using your own numbers.
Two engines
| Mode | When | How it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set | Sends a compact snapshot of your data and the question to the Claude API |
| Basic | No key | A built-in analyst routes the question by topic and states the relevant figures |
Basic mode works with no account and no cost. If the Claude API is unavailable, Orbit falls back to Basic mode automatically and says so.
Set ORBIT_AI_MODEL to choose a different Claude model. The default is a fast, low-cost one.
What the AI sees
Only a summary of the last 30 days and the 30 before: totals and changes, daily visitors, signups and revenue, traffic sources, top pages, customer counts by plan and status, the largest accounts by name and revenue, and the last few team actions.
It never receives customer emails, notes, passwords, API keys or any other workspace's data.
Safety
Page paths and customer names can contain text written by outsiders. Orbit strips angle brackets and control characters from them, wraps the data in a clearly marked block, and instructs the model to treat everything inside it as data and never follow instructions found there. The model is also told not to invent numbers.
Limits
Each person may ask 20 questions per 15 minutes. Answers are not stored.
Weekly summary
The Weekly summary preview shows the same short report that is emailed on Mondays to members who keep Weekly report switched on in their settings. The email job needs CRON_SECRET.
Alert explanations
Every alert notification and email adds which traffic source or page moved the most. This is calculated directly from your data and needs no AI service.