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First run

OpsPilot opens with nothing configured, nothing connected and nothing sent anywhere, and with its 15-day free trial running. This page describes what is in front of you after the first launch, and what to do with it.

OpsPilot during the free trial with no sessions open: the Trial · 15 days left chip in the title bar, saved connections in the side list with their AI badges, and the AI panel in its ready state The window during the free trial, here after a few connections have been saved; on a new install the list holds only Local. The title bar shows Trial · 15 days left. In the side list, web-01 and web-02 hold the trial's two AI places and show AI; bastion-01 and staging-app have AI turned on but show AI off · trial limit; Local and db-01 show AI off. The two connections in the Network group are Telnet and RDP, which have no AI badge. The AI panel says ready, which means the panel is loaded, not that a model is configured.

What you are looking at

  • The trial chip. The title bar shows Trial · 15 days left, counting down each day to Trial · ends today. Choose it to open Settings → License. In the last three days a notice below the tabs also offers Subscribe and Dismiss.
  • An empty connections list. No sample hosts, no imported profiles, no discovery scan.
  • A Local entry. A shell on the machine you are sitting at, available without configuring anything. Use it to check that the terminal works, and for the local-side half of a task. It ships with AI off, so its badge reads AI off.
  • The AI panel, in its ready state. It offers Analyze Error, Explain Command, Review Config and Optimize as starting points, and the composer shows an Auto-run off chip. No provider is selected because none is configured.
  • No open sessions. The session tab bar is empty until you connect to something.

Nothing has been sent anywhere, because there is nowhere to send it to and no session to read from. There is also no account behind any of this: the trial started without one, and settings, connections and profiles are local files on this workstation.

The AI badges in the side list

Every saved connection that can use AI — SSH connections and Local — carries a badge that says what applies to it, whether it is open or not:

  • AI — AI is on for this connection.
  • AI off — AI is turned off for it.
  • AI off · trial limit — during the trial, this connection does not hold one of the 2 places where AI can be on. Click the badge to give it one.
  • Other AI off and AI paused badges say why the license keeps AI off, for example AI off · no subscription once the trial has ended. Point at a badge for the full reason.

During the trial, AI can be on for 2 of your connections at a time, and you choose which. On a new install, the first two connections you save with Enable AI on take those two places; to move AI to another connection, click its AI off · trial limit badge and choose Use AI on … instead of …. The trial also allows up to 10 sessions open at once and your first 10 saved connections. See Free trial and limits.

What to do first

  1. Open a Local session. Double-click Local. You get a real shell in a real terminal, which confirms the install is sound.
  2. Create your first real connection. Use + new connection at the foot of the list. See Add a connection, or follow Quickstart if you want the whole loop in one pass.
  3. Decide how the AI reaches you — a provider you supply credentials for, a local model, or an external assistant you already pay for. All three are covered in AI Providers and AI Assistants.
  4. Set your safety policy before you give the AI anything interesting to look at. In Settings → Security → Command Safety you set, for the Default profile, which commands may run without asking you and what counts as a dangerous command.

AI access is scoped per connection

Configuring a provider does not make the AI able to see your sessions. Each connection carries its own Enable AI toggle, and a connection with it off is invisible to every model and every assistant — no scrollback, no host details, nothing.

Set the toggle deliberately on each connection you care about

Check Enable AI in the connection dialog every time you create or edit a connection, rather than relying on what the dialog shows when it opens. The seeded Local connection ships with AI off.

Rollout can therefore be incremental and reversible, provided you set the toggle actively. Turn AI off everywhere you are not ready to expose, enable it on a development host, watch how the loop behaves, and only then widen it. A connection you have confirmed as off never participates, whatever else you configure.

Before any AI is configured

OpsPilot is a complete terminal, file manager and remote-desktop client on its own. If you never configure a provider, that is what you have, and it sends nothing anywhere.

See also