Use the built-in agent

Enable a provider

Select one provider and supply its key before starting Pitot:

export PITOT_AI_PROVIDER=anthropic
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY_FILE=/run/secrets/anthropic_api_key

For OpenAI, use PITOT_AI_PROVIDER=openai and OPENAI_API_KEY_FILE instead. The selected provider requires its key. An empty provider disables chat. Restart after changing settings.

The default models are claude-sonnet-5-5 for Anthropic and gpt-6.1-sol for OpenAI. Override with PITOT_AI_MODEL. ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and OPENAI_BASE_URL select a gateway or alternate endpoint. See AI settings for endpoint and model requirements.

Requests send conversation and query evidence to the configured provider and can incur provider charges. Set usage budgets with that provider or your gateway. Every built-in role has agent:run, including viewers. This permission gates agent runs and thread APIs. See roles.

Investigate in a thread

Choose New chat in the navigation rail. Include a service, time window and symptom, for example: “Why did checkout latency rise in the last hour?” Continue in that thread to keep the conversation context. The agent can query telemetry and build dashboards.

Threads belong to the signed-in user. Select a saved chat in the rail to reopen it. Use Search at the bottom of the rail, or press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on other keyboards), to find chats, dashboards and services. A service result starts an investigation for that service.

Open a chat’s menu to Rename it or Delete it. Confirm deletion in the dialog. Renaming accepts a nonempty title of up to 120 characters.

Explain a panel

Open a dashboard panel’s menu and choose Explain in chat. Pitot opens chat with the panel context. Explanation requests are answer-only; the agent can read evidence and suggest corrections, but cannot save changes during that run.

Review the evidence before acting. Narrow the service or time window if a run hits its step limit or five-minute time limit.