Skip to main content
Short definitions of the terms used across these docs. Plugin authors will find SDK and manifest terms in the Plugin glossary.

​
Nodes and profiles

Agent. The ADOS software that runs on a Linux or macOS computer: native Rust services plus a Python layer. The Drone Agent and the Ground Agent are the same agent installed with different profiles. Node. Any computer running the agent: a drone’s companion computer, a ground station, a workstation or a compute box. Mission Control lists every paired node in its fleet. Profile. What a node is for, chosen at install time: drone, ground_station, workstation or compute. It decides which services start. See Node profiles. Ground-station role. How a ground_station node takes part in receiving video: direct (a single ground station with its own radio, the default), relay (forwards what its radio hears to a receiver) or receiver (combines what relays send it). See Mesh overview. Board profile. A description of one supported single-board computer (serial ports, camera paths, GPIO and capabilities) that the agent picks by detecting the board. See Supported hardware. Tier. A number from 1 to 4 that ranks a board’s compute class. Its only use is the plugin manifest’s min_tier, which keeps an extension off boards below that tier. See HAL and tiers.

​
Apps and surfaces

Mission Control. The ADOS ground control station, in the browser or as a desktop app. See Mission Control overview. Android GCS. The native ground control station app for Android phones and tablets. See Android GCS. Cockpit. Two things share the name. In Mission Control, Cockpit is the per-node tab you fly from. On a node, the agent serves its own on-box cockpit at /cockpit/ on port 8080. See Cockpit. Skill. One action in the cockpit’s Skill bar, such as Arm, take off, land or return home. Arm asks for confirmation before it enables the motors. Demo mode. Mission Control running with a simulated fleet and no hardware. See Dashboard. SITL. Software in the loop: the autopilot firmware running as a simulator on a computer, which Mission Control can connect to like a real flight controller. See SITL testing. MCP. The Model Context Protocol. The ADOS MCP server lets AI assistants read from and act on your nodes with scoped permissions. See MCP server. Pairing.
ADOS uses “pairing” for three separate things. A ground station normally needs the first two.
  • Mission Control pairing gives one Mission Control owner an API key for the node. See Pairing.
  • Air-link pairing (WFB-ng bind) exchanges radio keys between a drone and a ground station. See WFB-ng pairing.
  • Mesh pairing joins a relay to a receiver in a ground mesh. See Build a mesh.
Air link, WFB-ng. The long-range digital radio link between a drone and a ground station, built on WFB-ng. See WFB-ng. Distributed receive, mesh. Several ground stations working together: relays forward what their radios hear over a batman-adv mesh to a receiver, which combines it into one stream. See Mesh overview. Reach, bearer. The path Mission Control uses to talk to a node, shown on each node: Direct · LAN (same network), WFB · via a ground station, Cloud relay (through the MQTT broker) or Direct FC (USB to the flight controller). Cloud posture. Whether a node uses a cloud backend: Local only (the default; no cloud), Altnautica cloud, or Self-hosted (your own servers). See Cloud relay. PIC. Pilot in command. On a ground station, the arbiter decides which connected client holds the flight controls at any time, so two operators never fly at once.

​
Extensions and security

Extension, plugin. “Extension” is the operator-facing name for an installable add-on, as in Mission Control’s Extensions settings. “Plugin” is the developer-facing name for the same package: the .adosplug file, the plugin host and the ados plugin CLI. See Extensions catalog. Capability, permission. A named right an extension requests in its manifest, such as reading telemetry or sending flight commands. The operator grants permissions at install. See Permissions. Signer, first-party. Every extension is signed. The signer is the key that signed it; first-party extensions are signed by Altnautica and may use runtime modes other extensions cannot. See Signing keys. Black Box store. The agent’s on-node log store. It ships off; until you turn it on, the systemd journal is the log of record. See Black Box.

​
Next steps

Node profiles

The four profiles and what each one runs.

How ADOS works

How the parts connect.
Last modified on October 11, 2026