We don't make stuff up.
Here's how.
Every reply is grounded in live data, sourced, and run through six honesty checks before it reaches your device.
Look for the src: tag. It tells you which feed answered. General-knowledge replies are marked with ~. If we don't know, we say so.
Live feeds. Real sources.
Every answer that needs current data pulls from one of these. All public-record federal or open-source.
NWS
National Weather Service forecasts and active alerts — red flag, flash flood, severe storm, winter.
NOAA
Tide stations and marine forecasts.
USGS
Stream gauges (discharge, gauge height) and ground elevation.
Open-Meteo
Global forecast fallback when NWS doesn't cover you.
OpenStreetMap
Trails, points-of-interest, water sources, ranger stations.
sunrise-sunset.org
Astronomical times — sunrise, sunset, civil twilight.
Wilderness First Aid
Curated, citation-backed protocols for backcountry medicine.
Open web
Specialized data — avalanche bulletins, fire conditions — via grounded search with full source attribution.
Four ways to answer.
One way to admit we can't.
Live data
A real source covers your question. We pull from it and cite it.
src: NWSNo live data
Nothing covers it. We say so, and point you at a real workaround — a phone number, a ranger, a URL to check at your next town stop.
no live data for XCommon knowledge
Stable knowledge — knot tying, plant ID, gear repairs. We mark these so you know the answer isn't from a live source.
~We don't know
Genuinely unknown. We ask you for the missing detail rather than guess.
(no marker)Six checks before any
reply leaves our system.
Each one runs after the reply is drafted. They look for specific patterns — fabricated distances, unverified place names, citations without sources — and intercept them.
Stale-location guard
If your last GPS fix is more than 6 hours old, we won't claim to know where you are.
Inland-tide guard
We won't quote tide times if you're nowhere near a tide station.
Source-citation guard
Every src: tag is verified against the actual data we pulled. No fake citations.
Tool-failure fallback
If our data feed is down, we say so instead of guessing.
Distance-bearing guard
We won't tell you something is "1.8 km southeast" unless we actually queried a map.
Place-name guard
We won't claim "you're near [trail name]" unless a map confirms it.
What Relay won't do.
Won't dose your medication.
We'll cite the wilderness first-aid protocol. Specific dosing decisions stay with you and your bottle.
Won't replace 911 / SOS.
Hit your device's SOS button — that's still Garmin, Apple, or SPOT. Relay is the answer service that runs alongside, not the rescue line.
Won't generate routes from scratch.
We answer questions about the route you've already chosen — we don't invent new ones.
Some real-talk.
Relay is a young service. We log every answer for quality review and we're upfront when our data feed is offline. We use a large language model under the hood — fact-checked against live data sources before anything sends — but the trust comes from the grounding and the guards, not the model.
If we get something wrong, tell us — hello@northstarrelay.com. We read every message.
— The Relay team