We don't make stuff up.
Here's how.
Every reply is grounded in live data, sourced, and run through checks that make fabricated citations structurally impossible.
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 predictions, marine conditions, and magnetic declination.
Open-Meteo
Global land + marine forecasts and air quality when NWS doesn't cover you — worldwide.
NIFC
Active wildfire incidents from the federal interagency feed — name, distance, containment.
avalanche.org
Danger ratings from the avalanche center covering your exact position.
SNOTEL / NDBC
Mountain snowpack telemetry and live ocean buoy observations.
USGS
Stream gauges (discharge, gauge height) and ground elevation.
OpenStreetMap
Trails, points-of-interest, water sources, ranger stations, marinas.
sunrise-sunset.org
Astronomical times — sunrise, sunset, civil twilight — with an onboard NOAA-algorithm backup.
Wilderness First Aid
Curated, citation-backed protocols for backcountry medicine, including label-standard OTC dosing.
Open web
Everything else time-sensitive — closures, regulations, news — via grounded search with source attribution.
Three kinds of reply.
Each one marked.
Sourced
A live tool fetched real data this turn. The src: tag names the feed that answered — and the system physically can't append a source it didn't call.
src: NWSAdvisory
Reliable general knowledge — knot tying, gear fixes, wildlife behavior. The ~ prefix tells you no live feed was needed, so you can weigh it accordingly.
~Likely a dry pump cup...Clarifying
A tool could answer but an input is missing, or the feed is down. We ask for what we need — or tell you it's unavailable — instead of guessing.
Where are you? Reply w/ cityHonesty by construction,
not by promise.
Most guardrails aren't filters that catch a lie after it's written — they're structural: the system is built so the lie can't be assembled in the first place.
Citations are earned, not written
The evidence ledger is built from tools that actually ran this turn. A src: tag that doesn't match the ledger can't ship — the reply is replaced with an honest decline.
No coordinates, no coordinate tools
When we don't know where you are, the tools that need a position are removed from the model's hands entirely. It can't invent a lat/lon for a tool it can't see.
The place you ask about is not where you are
"Weather at Bishop Pass" is answered for Bishop Pass — a named place never overwrites your own position, and a stale fix is never passed off as current.
First aid comes from protocols
Medical replies must pull from the curated wilderness first-aid library (src: Relay-FA). No protocol retrieved, no medical claim — the reply declines instead.
Tool down means we say so
If a feed is offline, the reply tells you and suggests a real fallback. A failed lookup is never papered over with a guess from memory.
One SMS, plain text, hard cap
Every reply fits one 160-character ASCII message — checked before send, because a truncated safety answer is worse than none. Costs are capped per request too.
What Relay won't do.
Won't play doctor with dosing.
Adult OTC questions get the label-standard range, quoted from our protocol library. Prescription and pediatric dosing stay refused — those decisions belong with a clinician.
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