OmniCOVAS

A local command deck for Elite Dangerous.

OmniCOVAS is a free, open-source desktop app for Elite Dangerous commanders.

It is being built to help you keep track of your ship, your current goal, and the useful information around your session without bouncing between game panels, websites, notes, and separate tools.

Elite Dangerous can be a lot to manage. Your ship state, route, cargo, fuel, engineering plans, combat situation, market information, and commander notes can all matter at once. OmniCOVAS exists to bring that context into one local place and make it easier to understand.

The project is still in pre-alpha. It is not ready for normal end-user use yet, but the foundation is being built carefully: local-first, privacy-conscious, source-labeled, auditable, AI-optional, and commander-controlled.

OmniCOVAS is not a bot, not an autopilot, and not a cloud telemetry service. It does not play the game for you. It does not send your data to the maintainer by default. It does not treat AI guesses as facts.

• License: AGPL-3.0
• Target platform: Windows 10 / Windows 11
• Status: Pre-alpha
• Repository: https://github.com/RocketsProjects/omnicovas

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Why this project exists

Elite Dangerous has a huge amount of useful information, but it is scattered.

Some of it is in the game. Some of it is written to local files on your PC. Some of it lives in trusted community tools. Some of it is in your own notes, memory, spreadsheets, bookmarks, or Discord messages.

That works, but it creates friction.

You may be trying to answer simple questions like:

• What is happening to my ship right now?
• What was I doing this session?
• What do I need next?
• Where was I going?
• What did I learn from the last jump, fight, station, or route?
• Which information is fresh, and which information might be old?
• Is this fact from my local game data, a community source, or just unknown?

OmniCOVAS is being built for that gap.

The goal is to become a local command deck that helps commanders see what matters, understand what is known, and decide what to do next.

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What OmniCOVAS is

OmniCOVAS is planned as a desktop companion app that reads and organizes information from sources such as:

• the local files Elite Dangerous already writes on your PC;
• live ship and session state where available;
• commander-controlled settings and notes;
• trusted external sources, only when the commander enables them;
• optional AI assistance for explanation, summarizing, planning, and drafting.

The app is designed around a few practical ideas:

• One place for the current situation. Your ship, route, goal, warnings, and useful context should be easier to see.
• Information should show where it came from. If a fact is local, external, stale, missing, or unsupported, the app should make that clear.
• The commander stays in control. OmniCOVAS can suggest, prepare, summarize, or explain. It does not decide for you.
• AI should be helpful, not magical. AI is allowed to assist with wording, planning, and understanding. It is not treated as a source of game facts.
• The app should still work without AI. Core features should remain useful with AI disabled.

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What OmniCOVAS is not

OmniCOVAS is intentionally not trying to be everything.

It is not:

• a bot;
• an autopilot;
• a game memory editor;
• a cheat tool;
• a replacement for player judgment;
• a cloud telemetry service;
• an AI system that invents answers when no source exists;
• a tool that sends your commander data to the maintainer by default.

If OmniCOVAS does not have a verified source for something, it should say so plainly instead of guessing.

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Current status

OmniCOVAS is in pre-alpha.

The early foundation phases are complete and integrated:

• Phase 1 — Core
• Phase 2 — Ship Telemetry
• Phase 2.5 — early ship-telemetry reconciliation
• Phase 3 — UI Shell

Current work is focused on:

• Phase 4 — Tactical & Combat / First Operations Bridge

In plain language, Phase 4 is where OmniCOVAS starts turning the foundation into a more useful commander workflow. Combat-related tools are being built inside the Operations area of the app, with supporting alerts, logs, summaries, and settings where appropriate.

Accepted phase-baseline evidence is tracked internally in docs/internal/governance/OmniCOVAS_Phase_Baseline_Ledger_v1_0.md; this README keeps only the public summary.

There is no public stable release yet. Expect rough edges, missing features, changing UI, developer-focused setup steps, and active refactoring.

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What OmniCOVAS is meant to help with

The long-term plan is broad, but it is being built in small verified pieces.

At maturity, OmniCOVAS is intended to help with areas such as:

Ship awareness

See important ship and session information more clearly: hull, shields, heat, fuel, pips, cargo, modules, loadout, rebuy, and other local telemetry where Elite provides it.

Combat support

Keep combat-related context in one place: current risk, interdiction and escape events, combat notes, PvP encounter notes, combat zone context, munitions, AX support, and session debriefs.

Travel and navigation

Track where you are, where you are going, what route information is available, and what information is missing or stale.

Exploration and exobiology

Support exploration planning, system context, route notes, body information, and future exobiology workflows where reliable sources permit.

Trading, mining, and carrier planning

Help review possible places to buy or sell goods, mining locations, trade routes, station services, and carrier logistics without pretending old or unsupported data is guaranteed to be correct.

Engineering and materials

Help track engineering goals, material needs, unlock plans, build references, and related progression work.

Powerplay, BGS, and group activity

Support future campaign planning, faction context, Powerplay/BGS awareness, squadron coordination, and shared operations while keeping the source of each fact visible.

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How the app is organized

OmniCOVAS is designed around a small set of main areas:

• Dashboard — what matters right now.
• Intel — what is known.
• Navigation — where and how to move.
• Operations — what you are doing.
• Activity Log — what happened and how the app knows.
• Settings — how the app behaves.
• About — project information, links, credits, and references.

Future areas such as Squadrons, Engineering, and Carriers are planned only when the project is ready for them.

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Privacy and trust

OmniCOVAS is local-first by default.

That means:

• commander data stays on your machine unless you explicitly enable an outbound feature;
• no telemetry, analytics, or tracking are sent to the project maintainer by default;
• API keys and secrets are stored locally and encrypted using Windows DPAPI;
• secrets are redacted from logs;
• external sources are opt-in and visible through audit surfaces;
• the app should show whether information is local, external, stale, disabled, missing, or unsupported;
• core functionality must remain usable without an AI provider configured.

The goal is not just to show information. The goal is to show information in a way the commander can trust.

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AI, voice, and control

AI support is optional.

When enabled, AI is intended to help with things like:

• summarizing what happened;
• explaining available information;
• helping prepare a plan;
• drafting text;
• turning a commander request into a clear next step.

AI is not allowed to become the source of game facts. It must not invent telemetry, prices, station services, route quality, combat risk, or background-simulation information.

Voice and input support are also being designed carefully. OmniCOVAS may support voice features and optional integrations later, but protected actions must remain commander-confirmed and auditable.

No unattended automation. No direct AI-driven in-game action.

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Screenshots and demos

Screenshots and demo clips will be added when the app is in a better state to show publicly.

The project is still changing quickly, and the current priority is getting the foundation correct before presenting OmniCOVAS as something ready for everyday use.

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Development setup

OmniCOVAS is not yet an end-user release. These commands are for development.

Requirements

Development target:

• Windows 10 or Windows 11
• Python 3.11
• Rust toolchain via rustup
• Node.js LTS
• Microsoft C++ Build Tools
• uv Python package manager
• Git
• Elite Dangerous installed for live telemetry testing

Recommended editor:

• Visual Studio Code with Python, Rust Analyzer, Tauri, and Git tooling

Setup

PowerShell:

git clone https://github.com/RocketsProjects/omnicovas.git
cd omnicovas
uv venv --python 3.11
.venv\Scripts\activate
uv sync --all-extras
pre-commit install

Recommended local checks:

ruff format omnicovas/ tests/
ruff check omnicovas/ tests/
mypy omnicovas/
pytest -v

Tauri checks may require Node, Rust, and a correctly configured Windows development environment.

npm install
npm run tauri dev
npm run tauri build

Use the current phase guide for phase-specific verification commands.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome, but OmniCOVAS is still early and architecture-driven. Please read the project direction before opening a large pull request.

Useful starting points:

• README.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md
• CLA.md
• docs/internal/blueprints/OmniCOVAS_Index.md
• docs/internal/blueprints/OmniCOVAS_Index_AI_Reference.md

For non-trivial work, use the Index to find the current authority document before changing UI routes, backend services, source behavior, privacy behavior, AI behavior, or phase scope.

Every contribution requires a signed Contributor License Agreement before merge.

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Internal project documents

OmniCOVAS uses a larger internal document set to keep the project consistent as it grows.

The short version:

• Master Blueprint defines the project constitution.
• UI Blueprint defines the user-facing app structure.
• Backend Blueprint defines services, state, events, APIs, provenance, and privacy enforcement.
• Source Capability Routing Reference defines what each source can and cannot support.
• Compliance Matrix defines legal, privacy, license, attribution, and external-service constraints.
• Development Roadmap defines the Phase 4 through Phase 10 development path.
• Phase guides and playbooks turn roadmap work into bounded implementation tasks.
• Engineering Standards define canonical implementation patterns, verification expectations, and security-sensitive coding gates.
• Elite Local Data Surface Reference defines what local Elite files such as Journal, Status.json, and companion JSON snapshots can and cannot prove.
• Governance/support registers track phase baseline evidence, source verification evidence, compliance review evidence, ADR lifecycle, and executor alignment review status; they support the owning authorities rather than replacing them.
• Index is only a router. It points to the owning document but does not override it.

AI alignment files such as CLAUDE.MD, CLAUDE_CODE.md, AGENTS.md, and GEMINI.md are used for project development workflows. They define assistant and executor behavior only. They do not override the project blueprints, roadmap, compliance rules, source rules, ADRs, or maintainer instructions.

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Support the project

OmniCOVAS is free and open-source.

If you find the project useful, or if you just want to help it keep moving, optional support is appreciated. Any support goes toward practical development costs such as AI usage, testing, build tooling, and project infrastructure.

There are no paid features, no donation-only builds, and no obligation. Testing, feedback, bug reports, and sharing the project with other commanders all help too.

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Security

Please do not report vulnerabilities through public GitHub issues.

Use GitHub Private Vulnerability Reporting from the repository’s Security tab. See SECURITY.md for details.

Security-sensitive areas include:

• local journal and companion JSON handling;
• secrets and DPAPI vault behavior;
• external API requests and source routing;
• Activity Log redaction and audit behavior;
• Tauri bridge and WebSocket contracts;
• UI safe rendering;
• Confirmation Gate behavior;
• update, packaging, signing, and dependency trust.

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License

OmniCOVAS is licensed under AGPL-3.0. See LICENSE for the full license text.

The project also uses a Contributor License Agreement (CLA.md) so the maintainer can preserve long-term distribution flexibility while continuing to provide an AGPL-3.0 or compatible free-software license path.

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Acknowledgments

OmniCOVAS is inspired by the Elite Dangerous community tool ecosystem and the commanders who keep that ecosystem alive.

Important community and reference projects include, where applicable and within their terms:

• EDDN
• EDSM
• Inara
• Spansh
• EDAstro
• EliteBGS
• Ardent
• EDMC / EDDiscovery ecosystem references
• EDSY and Coriolis for build-link and format-interoperability concepts

Specific usage, attribution, provider capability, and compliance posture are governed by the project’s Source Capability Routing Reference and Compliance Matrix.

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Trademark disclaimer

Elite Dangerous, Frontier Developments, COVAS, and related names, marks, and assets are the property of their respective owners.

OmniCOVAS is an independent community project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or approved by Frontier Developments.

OmniCOVAS must not use Frontier-owned assets, traced ship art, screenshots, or copied UI art as project assets unless a future written license explicitly permits it.

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Maintainer note

OmniCOVAS is a zero-budget, volunteer-driven project built by a regular Elite Dangerous player who wanted a better command deck.

The project will move slower than a commercial product, but the goal is to build it carefully: local-first, source-labeled, auditable, accessible, and respectful of both commanders and the community tools OmniCOVAS may interact with.