please provide clarity on the autopilot service

[AndySchroder]

https://docs.lightning.engineering/lightning-network-tools/lightning-terminal does not mention the autopilot service. However, we have https://lightning.engineering/api-docs/category/autopilot-service-1 . On top of that, we also have https://lightning.engineering/api-docs/category/autopilot-service/index.html and https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/86e7b4e1e02e29117dcebba319b0da98e66a3365/sample-lnd.conf#L851 in lnd.

I'm not sure if the litd and lnd autopilot services are the same thing or if they are different, or they have overlapping functionality. Also, I'm not sure if the Lightning Terminal documentation is using a different name to describe that service.

[levmi]

Apologies for the naming confusion here. Lightning Terminal Autopilot is different from the lnd version. The Autopilot feature on Terminal will eventually encompass Autofees, Auto-Channel Opens, Auto-Channel Closes and more automation features. Right now, it just encompasses the first feature of that set with Autofees, which you can read about here: https://docs.lightning.engineering/lightning-network-tools/lightning-terminal/autofees. Once we launch the second feature of Auto-Channel Opens, we'll take a step back and write the guides such that Autopilot has subfeatures within it. But, for now, the Autofees guide should have the relevant information that you're looking for since it's the only live feature.

[AndySchroder]

Okay, so will you eventually obsolete the Autopilot feature in LND? Seems like there is going to be some overlap in functionality.

[levmi]

There will be some overlap in functionality. We'll see how people like the new features provided by the litd version of Autopilot and make a decision about deprecation/obsoleting the lnd version from that point.

[mfbrj]

How do I set the time interval for Autopilot to adjust fees? What is the default interval?

[ellemouton]

@mfbrj - at the moment it runs every 3 days and it is not currently configurable. Definitely something we can look into making configurable in future though :+1:

[mfbrj]

@ellemouton 3 days is a very long time in such a dynamic environment.

[levmi]

Great questions and push @mfbrj ! I'll step in for Elle here and she can add anything I miss if necessary :)

This was a decision that we discussed a bunch. With the initial launch, we really wanted to be responsible builders/stewards of this type of tooling and, thus, take into account that updating fees too frequently could pollute the gossip network. If, for instance, we went to the extreme end of the spectrum in the other direction and updated every hour, then, there could certainly be issues with gossip propagation and pathfinding, which we obviously want to avoid. From the initial launch, with the 3 day timeframe, users have been pretty happy with the increased flows and earnings. We will continue to evaluate this time param and try to make the best decision for our users and the network. Per usual, it's a series of tradeoffs in any decision for a product.

As mentioned, I could definitely see a world in the future where we give users more optionality wrt fee change timing. But, we want to be careful to not be too aggressive and make the choice that makes the most sense for the network. So, we're likely going to give these initial flow versions some more time to bake before we add that optionality or move the default to faster. But, with great feedback from folks like yourself, we can make more informed decisions about whether to make a change, add options, or keep it as is.

Does that make sense? Happy to answer other questions or follow ups :)

[mfbrj]

Thanks for your feedback @levmi

I'm quite new to the LN ecosystem. However, in two weeks my node reached #661, centrality 11th and Health Good, according to the Lightning Terminal metrics.

In that time, I noticed that the optimal adjustment of rates is perhaps the most important issue in managing a routing node. Doing it manually, through trial and error, is impractical and inefficient. Having a tool that automates the process using both activity information, and routing traffic amount is essential.

Sophisticated fee adjustment tools like charge-lnd are difficult to fine-tune, given the number of possible parameters. Which end up having to be tried on a trial and error basis.

On the other hand, a tool that is a black box such as Terminal's Autopilot, with a binary (enable/disable) configuration, is the other extreme.

I believe that Terminal's Autopilot has a great opportunity to be Tao, the middle way in this regard, exposing a minimal set of parameters, as well as good documentation of the mechanism for adjusting them.

[levmi]

Love to hear that your experience as a new node runner has gone so smoothly thus far! We are working hard to make it easier and easier for folks like yourself to come onboard and easily run routing nodes. I agree that we have an opportunity to become a balanced experience that is opinionated in order to be simple in some ways, but exposes certain params to give more controls to the users in other ways. That is our goal for the medium to long term. So, definitely continue to provide feedback and work with us to get there as it's super helpful to hear directly from users/node runners about what they want :)

[levmi]

Going to close this for now with a note that when we launch additional features, we should clarify more in our documentation the litd based Autopilot and the lnd based Autopilot cc @Liongrass for vis there.