> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.skylit.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Heatseeker field guide
> See where dealers are positioned at every strike and expiration, and where price may stall, bounce or speed up.
Educational material, not financial advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Options involve significant risk and are not suitable for every investor. Past behavior of any reading or setup does not guarantee future results.
Why it matters
Price does not move through every level the same way. Some strikes carry so much dealer hedging that price tends to stall, bounce or pin there. Others are thin, and price slides through them fast. Heatseeker shows you where those strikes are, so you can plan around them before price arrives.
For one ticker, Heatseeker shows **dealer exposure at every strike (rows) and every expiration (columns)**. Each cell is a **node**: a positive or negative dollar value, coloured by size.
It answers one question: **where are dealers positioned heavily enough that price may react?**
**In plain English.** Market makers take the other side of options trades and hedge by trading the underlying so they are not betting on direction. How much they have to re-hedge as price moves depends on gamma. A big GEX node is a strike where that hedging is heavy, so traders watch for a reaction when price gets there.
You can read the board two ways, with the GEX/VEX switch at the top left of the page:
* **GEX** (net gamma exposure) shows short-term dealer positioning. Day traders use it for intraday support and resistance. On indexes they watch the same-day (0DTE) column. On single names they watch the nearest expiration.
* **VEX** (net vanna exposure) shows positioning that shifts with implied volatility. Traders use it for a longer view, roughly five days and out, and on days when volatility spikes.
**In plain English.** Vanna is about implied volatility, not price. When IV rises or falls, options' deltas shift, and dealers re-hedge even if the stock has not moved. VEX shows where that effect is concentrated, which is why traders lean on it for multi-day reads and on days when volatility spikes.
Many traders look for places where GEX and VEX agree. That is a trader habit, not a tested signal.
Colour, sign and size
* On the default palette (viridis), **yellow** is the highest value on the board and **purple** the lowest. Greens and blues sit in between. Other palettes use other colours.
* The colours stretch from the board's lowest value to its highest, so zero has no fixed colour.
* **Read the number, not the colour.** A purple- or blue-looking cell without a minus sign is still a positive node.
* **Size matters more than sign or colour.** Skylit's lessons teach that the biggest node, positive or negative, pulls hardest.
* **Positive does not mean bullish, negative does not mean bearish.** The lessons teach that sign describes *how* price tends to move through a level:
* Positive nodes dampen moves and give smoother reactions.
* Negative nodes give wicky, fast moves that can overshoot before they reverse.
That is teaching, not a measured result.
Named nodes
| Name | What it is |
| ------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **King** | The biggest node on the board, positive or negative, marked with a star. The Academy teaches it as a level price is often drawn to, especially into the close. That is teaching, not a tested result. |
| **Pika** | A positive node (the Academy's "yellow node"). The right-click label marks only the biggest ones. |
| **Barney** | A negative node (the Academy's "purple node"). The right-click label marks only the biggest ones. |
| **Gatekeeper** | A large node between price and the King that can block the way there. The right-click label goes by size alone, so check where a labelled Gatekeeper actually sits. |
| **Floor / ceiling** | A large node below price (floor) or above it (ceiling). It can be positive or negative. |
Right-click a cell and the menu names the node's role when it has one ("King node", "Pika node", and so on). The Academy is Skylit's lesson library (see "To learn more" below).
Where to find it
* **One ticker's board:** Heatseeker → **Heatmaps**. It is the app's home page.
* **SPXW, SPY and QQQ together:** Heatseeker → **Trinity Mode**, or press `Shift+T` on the Heatmaps page.
* **Your alerts and tracked nodes:** Heatseeker → **Alerts**.
* **Nodes on a chart:** **Atlas** (also in the Heatseeker menu).
* **Keyboard shortcuts:** press `?` anywhere in the app.
The control bar
Almost every control sits in the bar above the board. Hover a button to see its name. On a computer:
* **Left side:** the GEX/VEX switch, **Center on Spot Price** and **Center on King Node**, and the lightning button for velocity. **Movers** appears here once velocity is on.
* **Right side:** **Refresh map**, replay (`Shift+R`), **View** (View Controls), the sliders button (Node %), **Copy image** and **Save image**.
On a phone the bar sits at the top of the screen and scrolls sideways. It has the same buttons in a different order.
To learn more
* The Academy's Heatseeker track.
* The Learn pages on docs.skylit.ai: Core Concepts, Examples & Case Studies and Patternpedia.
* Skylit's own channel, [Skylit on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@Skylit_AI).
* Videos from the team and community: [Glitch](https://www.youtube.com/@Glitch_SPX), [John Wicks](https://www.youtube.com/@The_John_Wicks), [Nicog8](https://www.youtube.com/@nicog8_trading), [Garma](https://www.youtube.com/@garma_donM4), [Giul](https://www.youtube.com/@giul_trades) and [DixonQ](https://www.youtube.com/@r2q2).
Plans
What you can open depends on your plan. Full Heatseeker access covers 3,500+ tickers; some plans cover index tickers only. If a page shows an upgrade card instead of the tool, your plan does not include it.
Read it in 30 seconds
These steps follow the docs and the Academy. They are reading habits, not tested rules.
1. **Find the King.** It is the starred cell. Note where it sits relative to price and how far away it is.
2. **Find the floor and ceiling.** They are the biggest nodes just below and just above price. Together they mark the edges of the range.
3. **Is price at an edge or in the middle?** Edges are where traders look for a reaction. Many traders avoid the middle of a range, where risk and reward are about even.
4. **Is the board building or melting?** Turn on velocity (the lightning button). Building nodes are growing; melting nodes are shrinking. Lessons teach that growing nodes near price pull it in, and shrinking ones lose their hold.
5. **Do SPX, SPY and QQQ agree?** For index trades, open Trinity. When they disagree, many traders stand aside. Lessons differ on whether two of the three agreeing is enough.
Heatseeker is context, not a trigger. Many traders wait for price action to confirm a level before they act.
How to use it
Pick a ticker
Get to the board you want in a keystroke, and keep it there when you refresh or share the link.
1. Type any letter or `/` to open search, or pick from the ticker dropdown.
2. Use the left and right arrow keys to step through the list.
3. To pin a ticker, star it in the ticker list, or use **+** on the favourites row.
4. Press `Cmd+K` (`Ctrl+K` on Windows) to open the watchlist picker. Create, edit and search watchlists from there.
The ticker stays in the page address (`?symbol=SPY`), so a refresh or a shared link opens the same ticker.
Switch between GEX and VEX
GEX is for today's levels; VEX is for multi-day bias and volatile days.
1. Click the **GEX** or **VEX** tab at the top left of the board.
2. The board, the King and velocity all follow the view you pick.
The keyboard shortcuts shown on the tabs do not reliably switch the board yet, so click the tabs.
Read the board
* Rows are strikes, columns are expirations. The strike nearest the current price is highlighted.
* Hover a cell to see its value.
* With **Raw hover** on (in the Node % panel), hover always shows the dollar value, even when the board shows percentages.
* **Center on Spot Price** keeps the board scrolled to price as it moves. **Center on King Node** keeps it on the King. Click the same button again to stop.
Right-click a node (long-press on a phone)
Set an alert or start watching a level straight from the board, without typing a price.
1. Right-click any cell (long-press on a phone).
2. Choose what the alert follows:
* the node's role (**King node**, for example), which follows the node if it moves to another strike, or
* the exact **\$level**.
3. Pick an action from the table.
| Action | What it does |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Alert as it approaches** | Fires as price gets close to the node. The margin setting next to it sets how close, from a quarter of the gap between two strikes up to one full gap. |
| **Alert at the tap** | Fires once, when price touches it. |
| **Track node size** | Adds the node to your tracked list so you can watch it build or melt over the day. |
| **Hide this strike** | Removes a row from the board. The hidden-strikes chip or View Controls brings it back. |
View Controls
Show as much or as little of the chain as you need, and calm a noisy board.
1. Click **View** (the grid button on the right of the control bar). On a phone it is the first button in the top bar.
2. Pick a **zoom** preset: tight, normal or wide.
3. Set **Strike Range** (how many strikes around price) and **Expirations** (how many columns). Quick picks: 1W, 1M, 3M, 6M and All.
4. To hide clutter, use **Hide strikes under** a value. You can also hide strikes that have no value in the columns shown.
5. **Reset** (top of the panel) returns strike range, expirations and zoom to their defaults.
6. Hidden strikes come back from the strike picker's reset or from the hidden-strikes chip.
Node %
See at a glance how big each node is next to the King. This changes how values are *shown*, not what they are. One setting covers the heatmap, Trinity and the heatmap panels on Atlas charts.
1. Click the sliders button, next to **View** in the control bar.
2. Pick a **Preset**:
* *Off* shows plain values. It is the default.
* *Focus* shows values as a share of the King, and hides or dims small nodes.
* *King* keeps only the King readable.
3. Under **Read as**, choose dollar value or **% King**. The King is always 100%.
4. Under **Low nodes**, pick **Hide**, **Dim** or **Fade** for nodes below a share of the King you choose.
5. Pick a **Palette**. There are seven colour maps. The picker marks which are colour-blind safe; cividis is the recommended one.
6. To keep a combination, save it as a named preset. It follows you across devices.
Velocity
A level that grows as price approaches tends to matter more than one that is shrinking. Velocity shows which is which.
1. Click the lightning button in the control bar to turn velocity on.
2. Pick a timeframe from the menu beside it: 1 min, 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 1 hour, 4 hours or 1 day.
3. Read the badges on the cells. "Increasing" means the node is getting bigger, whatever its sign. A negative node going from -100 to -150 is increasing.
4. To see only growing or only shrinking nodes, use the direction menu: All, Increasing or Decreasing.
5. Click **Movers** for the fastest-growing and fastest-shrinking nodes, and your tracked nodes. The button shows up once there are movers to list.
6. In the timeframe menu, switch the halo on (**Halo · must agree**). It marks strikes where velocity agrees across the timeframes you pick (at least two).
For day trades, many traders use 5 to 15 minutes, because 1 minute flips every bar. That is a habit, not a tested setting.
Replay
Check whether price already reached a level and left ("delivered") before you lean on it. Or review a past session.
1. Press `Shift+R`, or click the replay button on the right of the control bar.
2. Pick a date and time. Times are always Eastern. You can also jump to **NOON**, and on index tickers to **NY OPEN**.
3. Press play to run the board forward.
4. Press `Shift+R` or the replay button again to go back to the live board.
The board does not flag which levels are delivered and which are fresh, so replay is how you check.
Copy and save image
Grab the board as a picture for a trading journal or a Discord post.
1. Click **Copy image** (right end of the control bar) to put the board on your clipboard, ready to paste.
2. Or click **Save image** to download it as a PNG file.
Trinity
Index traders read SPX, SPY and QQQ together. Trinity puts them side by side so you can see at a glance whether they agree.
1. Open Heatseeker → **Trinity Mode**, or press `Shift+T` on the Heatmaps page.
2. You see SPXW, SPY and QQQ, on GEX by default. Use the GEX/VEX switch in Trinity's control bar to change view.
3. Velocity, Center on Spot / Center on King, Node % and replay work here too, from the same bar.
4. To add a ticker, click **Add ticker panel** (the **+** button). You can have up to six panels. They stay put after a refresh.
5. To leave, click **Close Trinity mode**.
**Same values, different shading.** Trinity has its own colour-scale setting: scale by the first column, or by view settings. So the same strike can be shaded differently here and on the single-ticker board. The values are the same; read those.
Alerts
Let the app watch your levels so you do not have to stare at the board.
1. Open Heatseeker → **Alerts**. Everything you set from a node lives here, in two tabs: **Alerts** and **Tracked**.
2. Click **Create Alert** to build an alert by hand. Pick tickers or a watchlist, then a node type or a custom price level.
3. Or click **Smart Alerts** to set approach alerts in one click. It covers the King, Pika and Barney nodes, on GEX and VEX, for every ticker in the watchlist you pick.
4. Open **Tracked** to see how each tracked node has grown or shrunk since you added it.
Use it with other Skylit tools
* **Atlas (the chart).** Read levels against candles without switching screens.
* Heatseeker nodes appear on the chart as orbs.
* `Shift+H` opens a heatmap panel beside the chart, and `Shift+T` a Trinity panel.
* Dark pool levels sit on the same chart.
* On futures charts, Atlas can show levels from a related options chain.
* **Flowseeker (who is trading).** Flow shows what traders are doing; Heatseeker shows where dealers are positioned. Some traders look for flow arriving at a large node. That is a habit, not a tested signal.
* **Alerts (so you do not have to watch).** Set approach and tap alerts on the King or any node, straight from the board.
* **Talon (plain-English reads).** Ask for levels, Trinity agreement or a setup scan without leaving the page. See below.
Ask Talon
Get a plain-English read of the map, or check another ticker, without leaving the page.
Talon is Skylit's AI assistant. It lives in the Aegis panel.
1. Open the Aegis panel: click the bubble, or press `Cmd+\`.
2. Type a question or a slash command from the table below.
3. On the heatmap page, Talon reads the same board you are looking at. Name another ticker and it fetches that one too.
If Talon is not on your plan, the Aegis panel does not show a Talon tab.
Talon describes the map. A setup scan (`/talon`) describes the levels and structure around a ticker or trade idea. Talon does not tell you to buy or sell, and it does not size positions. It also will not explain how exposure is calculated.
| You want | Ask Talon |
| --------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Levels for this or another ticker | `/levels` · `/levels SPXW` · "Where is QQQ's King?" · "What's above and below spot on NVDA?" |
| The three indexes together | `/trinity` · "Do SPX, SPY and QQQ agree right now?" |
| A setup scan | `/talon TSLA` · `/talon sector semis` · `/watchlist` (scans your Atlas watchlist) |
| How the board changed | "Did the 110 node on AAPL grow since last week?" · "Has the King moved today?" |
| Whether a level has been tested | "When did SPY last touch 580?" · "Was 110 tested this week?" |
| Flow and context next to the map | `/flow` · `/darkpool` · `/metrics` · `/market` · `/earnings` |
| A definition | "What is a gatekeeper?" · "What is a beach ball?" · "What does delivered mean?" |
How it behaves:
* **The ticker you type wins.** `/levels SPXW` answers for SPXW even if the page shows SPY, and every level is labelled with its ticker.
* **Trinity answers say whether the three agree**: all three, two of three, or divergence.
* **Velocity is a word, not a rate.** From the heatmap page Talon can say a node is building or thinning. It cannot say how fast.
Good to know
* **Heatseeker is not a signal.** It shows where dealers are positioned. It does not predict direction. Many traders wait for price action.
* **The map can change within minutes.** When it reshuffles, old levels may stop mattering. Re-read the board before you rely on them.
* **Big events move the map.** OPEX week, FOMC, CPI, NFP and the last half hour of the session can distort or reshuffle it. Large hedge nodes far from price often appear around these events.
* **Lesson numbers are rough.** You may see figures in lessons or the docs, such as how often a node holds on a second touch. They are teaching guides, not measured results, and sources give different numbers.
* **The playbooks are habits, not proof.** Reading tips in this guide and in the Academy are trader habits, not tested signals. That covers magnets, the King pin, trading against range edges and cross-index agreement. Sources sometimes disagree on the details.
* **Use the tabs for GEX and VEX.** The keyboard shortcuts shown for them do not reliably switch the board yet.
* **Talon's history answers are newer.** Some questions may come back unavailable or less complete than a levels read. That applies to how a node changed over time, and whether a level is fresh or tested. Check those on replay.
* **Colour-blind use.** The palette picker marks which palettes are colour-blind safe; cividis is the recommended one. Velocity badges show a signed percentage next to red and green. Other red and green cues in the app have not all been checked for colour-blind use.
What's new
**September 2026**
* **Your ticker survives a refresh.** The ticker you pick now stays in the page address, so a refresh or a shared link opens that same ticker instead of SPXW. See [Pick a ticker](#pick-a-ticker).
* **Steadier Trinity ladders.** Trinity columns keep their full strike range after you switch tabs, rows stay aligned when the browser is zoomed out, and resizing re-centres the board. See [Trinity](#trinity).
* **Negative values in Trinity read cleanly.** The minus sign on Trinity values matches the digits' width and height again, so you can spot negative nodes at a glance. See [Trinity](#trinity).
* **View Controls show the full chain.** The Strike Range and Expirations sliders now reach every strike and expiration the ticker has, so you are no longer stuck at five expirations. See [View Controls](#view-controls).
**August 2026**
* **Trinity remembers your panels.** Tickers you add, remove or swap in Trinity Mode stay put after a refresh, so you never rebuild your layout from SPXW, SPY and QQQ. See [Trinity](#trinity).
* **No more blue wash over the board.** Dragging across the heatmap or resizing the window no longer highlights the whole grid as selected text, so your board stays readable, especially in Safari. See [Read the board](#read-the-board).
* **Hide strikes and see what is hidden.** Hide a strike from its right-click menu or by value in View Controls. Hidden strikes show struck through, so you can bring any back. See [View Controls](#view-controls).
* **Expirations slider in View Controls.** Pick any number of expiration columns with the new slider, not just the 1W to All presets. Both sliders now work with arrow keys. See [View Controls](#view-controls).
* **Strikes that never trade are gone.** Listed strikes that have never traded no longer show as empty rows, so you will not mistake them for gaps in dealer positioning. See [Read the board](#read-the-board).
* **No flicker when switching tickers.** As you step through tickers, the board no longer flashes down to a single column before settling, so each ticker appears cleanly. See [Pick a ticker](#pick-a-ticker).
Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
| --------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Air pocket** | A zone with little exposure, which price can cross quickly. Faster through negative exposure, slower through positive. A path, not a target. |
| **Barney** | A negative node (the Academy's "purple node"). The right-click label marks only the biggest ones. Negative means volatile interactions, not bearish. |
| **Beach ball** | Price punches through a big node, then snaps back to it. |
| **Ceiling** | A large node above price that tends to slow or turn upward moves. Either sign. |
| **Confluence** | Agreement: across SPX, SPY and QQQ, or between GEX and VEX, or between the map and the chart. |
| **Delivered** | A node price has already reached and left. Lessons teach it carries less pull next time. |
| **Deflection** | The bounce or rejection when price reaches a node. |
| **Floor** | A large node below price that tends to slow or turn downward moves. Either sign. |
| **Fresh node** | A node price has not touched yet. |
| **Gatekeeper** | A node between price and a larger target (in the docs, the King) that can block the way there. A failed test there often reshuffles the map. |
| **GEX** | Net gamma exposure. Short-term dealer positioning. |
| **Hedge node** | A large, slow-moving node far from price, common around major events. Acts like insurance more than a magnet. |
| **King** | The largest absolute value on the board, marked with a star. |
| **Midpoint** | The middle of a range, where many traders see risk and reward as about even. |
| **Node** | One cell: the exposure at one strike and one expiration. |
| **Node %** | Reading each value as a share of the King. |
| **OPEX** | Monthly options expiration, the third Friday. Nodes can carry less weight that week. |
| **Pika** | A positive node (the Academy's "yellow node"). The right-click label marks only the biggest ones. Positive means dampened interactions, not bullish. |
| **Reshuffle** | A fast change in the map's structure. Re-read the board before relying on old levels. |
| **Rolling** | A floor moving up or a ceiling moving down over time. |
| **Rug / reverse rug** | A positive node stacked on a negative one above price (rug), or the mirror image below price (reverse rug, or trampoline). |
| **Trinity** | SPXW, SPY and QQQ read together. |
| **Velocity** | How fast a node is growing or shrinking in size, over a chosen timeframe. |
| **VEX** | Net vanna exposure. Positioning that shifts with implied volatility; used for longer-horizon bias. |
| **Wall** | Trader shorthand for a large node price has to get through, usually a floor or ceiling. The Talon and Atlas guides use it. |
