Heatseeker field guide

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?

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.

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

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 skylit.ai/docs: Core Concepts, Examples & Case Studies and Patternpedia.
• Skylit's own channel, Skylit on YouTube.
• Videos from the team and community: Glitch, John Wicks, Nicog8, Garma, Giul and DixonQ.

Plans

What you can open depends on your plan. Full Heatseeker access covers 5,000+ 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.

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.

How to read what velocity shows:

• 1 day compares with the last session close, not with this time yesterday. A stock's last reading stays on the board after its close, until the next open.
• Movers are ordered by dollar change. The node whose size changed most comes first, whatever its percentage. Each riser and faller still shows its percentage.
• Emerging and Fading. An Emerging node is a position that appeared at that strike during the timeframe (from zero). A Fading node is a position that went to zero. They have their own lists under Movers. Each of their rows shows the move, from the size then to the size now. A node that flipped sign (negative to positive, or back) shows its move the same way.
• Minimum size (in the timeframe menu, Off by default) hides small nodes from the badges and the Movers lists. Pick % of largest (0.5%, 1%, 2% or 5% of the symbol's largest strike) or Fixed $ ($25K, $100K, $500K or $1M of gamma; vanna uses five times that). The setting shows the dollar size it works out to, and the same setting applies in Trinity, Atlas and Talon heatmap blocks. A riser or faller stays only if it was at least that size both at the start of the timeframe and now. Emerging and Fading nodes always show. With a high minimum the lists can be shorter. On the API the lists come unfiltered, so apply the same rule in your own code if you want it.
• On a phone, a badge that does not fit its cell shows as a dot. Tap the cell for the full reading.

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.

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.

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

November 2026

• One minus sign beside velocity badges. Heatmap values, Top Movers, the velocity popover and its chart axis, and the alert banner now use the same minus sign as the velocity badges, instead of a plain hyphen. See Velocity.
• Heatmaps link no longer jumps to Atlas. Clicking Heatmaps after opening the app now stays on Heatmaps. Before, a later click could send you to your Home page or last page, often Atlas.
• Heatmap header text on one baseline in Atlas. In Atlas, the HEATMAP label, price change, and the GEX and Velocity pills in the Heatmap header now line up on the same baseline.
• Atlas phone panel controls no longer cover Trinity. On a phone in Atlas, panel buttons no longer sit over Trinity's columns. The row is ⋯ ⤢ − ×, with ⋯ holding the docking moves. Trinity's header text now sits on one baseline. See Trinity.

October 2026

• Atlas look for Heatseeker controls and pop-ups. Heatseeker's top bar, phone bars, View Controls, Node %, Replay bar and watchlist pop-ups now share Atlas hover shading, outlines and scrollbars. The GEX/VEX selection no longer slides. See The control bar.
• Replay date and time boxes shade on hover. In Replay, each part of the date and time boxes, including the calendar and clock icons, now shades when you hover over it and shows an outline while you type. See Replay.
• Velocity details match the heatmap in Trinity. Clicking a Trinity cell now opens the same velocity popover as the heatmap, including the "vs day time" comparison when it applies, the session-close state, and the Emerging / Fading badges on cells. See Trinity.
• Velocity works for all strikes in Trinity. Trinity cells for strikes with more than two decimals now show their velocity instead of coming up empty. See Trinity.
• Clear message for tickers with no options data. When a ticker has no options trades, the heatmap now says so instead of suggesting a connection problem. The faint "check your connection" text also no longer shows behind the loading and no-data messages. See Read the board.
• Auto-centre no longer hides part of a column. When the heatmap centres on the King, the expiration column next to the Strike column is no longer half hidden, and its header date stays readable. This also applies after you switch tickers. See Read the board.
• Phone ticker change lands on the new King. On a phone, picking a different ticker now centres the heatmap on that ticker's King row. The board also stays steady while your finger is on it, then updates when you let go. See Pick a ticker.
• Heatmap block header gets centring, velocity and image tools. On Talon Dash, the Heatmap block header now has Spot / King centring, a one-click Velocity toggle with its timeframe, Top movers, and Copy / Save image. On narrow blocks, image options sit in a ⋯ menu. See Ask Talon.
• Trinity stacks correctly at mid-width windows. In a browser window between 640 and 767 pixels wide, Trinity panels now stack vertically as they do on phones, instead of showing a broken layout. See Trinity.
• Spot-split chip uses compact units. The Above/Below spot-split chip now shows values in M or B, for example Above −$262.7M · Below −$55.6M, instead of long K figures. It also uses the regular interface font. See Read the board.
• Named palettes, preview and Node % in Options. In Talon Options › Charts & Heatmaps, each heatmap palette now has a name and a live preview. Node % settings are here too. Dashboard heatmap blocks with their own colours are listed, with one button to switch them back to your device's colours. See Ask Talon.

Every Heatseeker update: skylit.ai/changelog/heatseeker.

Glossary