Configuration

EDLD Configuration Reference

✅ = Hot-reloadable — takes effect within ~1 second of saving config.toml ❌ = Restart required — when changed in Options, EDLD restarts automatically

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[Settings]

Key	Default	Hot	Description
JournalFolder	""	❌	Path to your Elite Dangerous journal directory. Blank finds the game's own: Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous on Windows, and the same inside the Steam/Proton prefix on Linux
UseUTC	false	✅	Use UTC timestamps instead of local time
WarnKillRate	20	✅	Alert when average kills/hour drops below this value
WarnNoKills	20	✅	Alert after this many minutes without a kill
WarnNoKillsInitial	5	✅	Before the session's first kill: alert after this many minutes at a combat site — a RES, nav beacon or conflict zone — without one. 0 turns it off
BountyValue	false	✅	Show credit value on each kill line
BountyFaction	false	✅	Show victim faction on each kill line
PirateNames	false	✅	Show pirate pilot names in kill and scan messages
ExtendedStats	false	✅	Show running kill counts and per-faction tallies
MinScanLevel	1	✅	Minimum scan stage required to log an outbound scan (0 = all)
PrimaryInstance	true	❌	Set to false on secondary/remote instances to suppress uploads to EDDN, EDSM, EDAstro and Inara, and the overlay — monitoring, alerts, and the dashboard remain fully active
FullStackSize	20	✅	Mission stack size that triggers the "stack full" announcement
WarnCooldown	15	✅	Minutes between repeated inactivity / kill-rate alerts
TruncateNames	30	✅	Maximum character length for pilot/faction names in output

Options → General, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

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[Discord]

Key	Default	Hot	Description
WebhookURL	''	❌	Discord webhook URL
UserID	0	❌	Your Discord user ID for @mention pings on level-3 events
Identity	true	❌	Use EDLD's name and avatar on the webhook
Timestamp	true	❌	Append a timestamp to each Discord message
ForumChannel	false	❌	The webhook is a forum channel's: the first post starts a thread and the rest go into it
ThreadCmdrNames	false	❌	Name the forum thread CMDR <name>; otherwise ED Live Dashboard with the date and time
PrependCmdrName	false	✅	Prefix every Discord message with your commander name

Options → Discord, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

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[UI]

Key	Default	Hot	Description
Interface	"edcars"	❌	What EDLD opens when started without an interface flag: edcars (the desktop window as a console, default — see EDCARS.md), gui (the desktop window, every window at once), textual (terminal dashboard), terminal (plain scrolling output) or headless. Set by Options → Appearance → Interface, and by starting an interface by name — its flag, --mode, or its launcher shortcut — so a plain launch opens whichever was chosen last. --headless is never recorded: a service would otherwise leave the next desktop launch with no window. -s names no interface, so on its own it opens this one and records nothing. Edited where it is read from: the active profile's UI.Interface if the profile sets one, otherwise [UI]. Headless can only be set by hand. Replaces the older Mode and Style keys, which are converted on first start: Mode = "textual", the old default, becomes EDCARS; gui keeps the layout Style gave it; terminal and headless are kept
Theme	"default"	❌	Theme name (elite-orange, default, default-dark, default-green, default-blue, default-purple, default-red, default-yellow, default-light, order, rebel, rogue, or a custom theme) — changing this in Options triggers an automatic restart
EdcarsAlerts	"pulse"	✅	EDCARS only, on a new urgent alert: pulse the Alerts pill, or switch to the Alerts section as well. Sent to EDAM, which does the same
Console	"edcars"	❌	EDCARS only: the console it is drawn as — edcars, order (an Imperial fleet console), rebel (a Rebel ops board) or rogue (an independent freighter's cockpit). The layout is the same in all four; the band, the pills, the frames and the faces differ. Each of the last three has a theme of its own name. Set by Options → Appearance; used from the next start. Sent to EDAM in the header's console
HelmPanel	true	✅	The Dashboard layouts, desktop and terminal: show the Helm panel along the foot while [Automation] Enabled is on (AUTOMATION.md). EDCARS always has it, as a section

All the interfaces render the same windows from the same components and share one config, one set of per-commander data, and one window layout, so you can switch between them freely. edcars and gui require PySide6; see INSTALL.md.

Window layout

Which window sits where is not part of config.toml. It lives in windows.json in the commander's data directory, and the usual way to change it is Options → Display, which writes the file for you. example.layout.json in the repository root shows the format and the shipped default.

Slots are addressed <column><position> — A/B/C left to right, numbered top to bottom. Each window has a size class and may only occupy a slot of the same class:

Class	Slots	Windows
Large	A1, A2, C1, C2	Exploration / Exobiology, Navigation, Ship, Career / Session, Mining
Center	B1, B2, B3	Commander, Crew / Alerts, Objectives

There are eight windows and seven slots. Mining has no slot by default; choose it for a large slot to show it in place of the window that was there. Its tables are wider than a large slot and scroll sideways. EDCARS gives it a section of its own.

Left and right columns mirror each other — two large windows apiece — and the center column is three equal windows. Any window may occupy any slot of its own class.

Anything invalid — an unknown window, a class mismatch, the same window twice — is dropped on load and the slot falls back to its default, so a hand-edited file cannot leave the dashboard unable to draw.

Several windows no longer exist in their own right, having been folded into the window they belonged with:

Was	Now
Assets	Wallet / Ships / Modules / Carrier / S. Carrier tabs on Commander
Exobiology	nested under each body in Exploration
Massacre Mission Stack	the Missions tab in Objectives
Colonization	the Colonization tab in Objectives
Cargo	the Cargo tab in Ship
Engineering	its own window again, Engineering: Fitting, and the Materials tab that was Ship's Engineering tab
Ship Health	renamed Ship; hull, shields and fuel moved to Commander's Info tab
Alerts, Crew / SLF	merged into Crew / Alerts
Session	the Session tab in Career / Session

A windows.json written before version 2 describes a window set that no longer exists, and the slot grid changed shape with it. Rather than leave a half-populated grid, such a file is replaced with the current defaults and rewritten once, on the next launch.

Options → Display, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

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[LogLevels]

All entries are hot-reloadable. Controls terminal, Discord, and dashboard output independently per event type.

Level	Behavior
0	Disabled entirely
1	Local only (no Discord)
2	Local + Discord
3	Local + Discord + @mention ping

Key	Default	Event
RewardEvent	2	Each kill — bounty or combat bond
FighterDamage	2	Fighter hull damage (every ~20%)
FighterLost	3	Fighter destroyed
ShieldEvent	3	Ship shield dropped or raised
HullEvent	3	Ship hull damaged
Died	3	Ship destroyed
CargoLost	3	Cargo stolen — lost while being shot at or interdicted, with the cargo panel shut and no pirate's demand standing. Your own jettison is a terminal line; one that pays off a pirate says so
LowCargoValue	2	Pirate declined to attack (insufficient cargo)
PoliceScan	2	Security vessel scanned your ship
PoliceAttack	3	Security vessel is attacking you
FuelStatus	1	Routine fuel level report
FuelWarning	2	Fuel level below warning threshold
FuelCritical	3	Fuel level below critical threshold
MissionUpdate	2	Mission accepted, completed, redirected, or removed
AllMissionsReady	3	All active massacre missions ready to turn in
CarrierJumpScheduled	3	Fleet or squadron carrier jump scheduled — carrier, destination and countdown
CarrierJumpCancelled	3	A scheduled carrier jump was canceled
CarrierJumpComplete	2	Carrier arrived at its destination
MeritEvent	0	Individual merit gain from a kill
InactiveAlert	3	No kills for the configured time period (WarnNoKills, or WarnNoKillsInitial before the first)
RateAlert	3	Kill rate below the configured threshold
InboundScan	1	Incoming cargo scan from a pirate
PeriodicKills	2	Kill count in the quarter-hour summary
PeriodicFaction	0	Per-faction kill breakdown in the quarter-hour summary
PeriodicCredits	2	Credits earned in the quarter-hour summary
PeriodicMerits	2	PowerPlay merits in the quarter-hour summary, when pledged
CapiAuthRequired	3	Your Frontier login for the Companion API has expired and needs signing in again — CAPI features stop until you do
RouteWarning	2	A route through permit-locked systems, a tank that runs dry with no scoop, a dry stretch ahead, a target that is not the next system, a re-plot after leaving the route
SurveyArrival	1	Arriving at a survey stop: what is left to map, sample, buy or sell there
ExploTarget	1	A targeted system no one has ever reported
FirstsWatch	2	An undiscovered system, a world first mapped, ground no one has set foot on; and a body among your unsold first discoveries that someone else has since scanned
MiningCallout	1	A prospected rock with a mineral you watch, a motherlode, the ring dropped into
MiningWarning	2	The hold nearly full and full; undocking with no limpets aboard
ExobioCallout	1	A genus new to your codex in this region; clear of earlier samples
ExobioWarning	2	Leaving a body with a sample run unfinished
CarrierUpkeep	3	The carrier's balance short of the upkeep due within two days
Automation	1	What auto honk, the next-stop plot, journal backups and the EDSM gap fill did

Options → Notifications, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

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Command Line Arguments

python edld.py [-p PROFILE] [-t] [-d | --debug]
               [--edcars | --dashg | --gui | --dasht | --tui | --term | --text | --headless]
               [--mode MODE] [-s] [--pair] [--paired] [--unpair ID]
               [--shortcuts] [--remove-shortcuts] [--version] [--selftest]
               [--overlay-probe] [--overlay-doctor] [--overlay-selftest]

Flag	Description
-p, --config_profile	Load a named config profile
-t, --test	Re-route Discord output to terminal instead of sending to webhook
--debug	Write the diagnostic log: errors, warnings and debug lines
-d, --trace	Write the diagnostic log with trace detail as well, and echo routine lines to the terminal
(none)	What [UI] Interface says — EDCARS unless you have changed it
--edcars	EDCARS: the desktop window as a console — requires PySide6
--dashg, --gui	The desktop window, Dashboard layout — requires PySide6
--dasht, --tui	Terminal dashboard
--term, --text	Plain scrolling event output (--terminal, its old name, still works)
--headless	No interface and no terminal output, for running as a service; with --debug or --trace, diagnostics go to the log file
--mode MODE	The same by id: edcars, gui, textual, terminal or headless
-s, --server	Also serve paired EDAM devices, for this run — see SERVER.md. [Server] Enabled (Options → Server) does it for every run, whichever interface opens
--shortcuts	Add, or refresh, a launcher shortcut for each interface — Windows Start menu or Linux application menu — then exit
--remove-shortcuts	Remove them, then exit. On Windows this also stops the binary adding them again until --shortcuts is run
--pair	Show a one-time pairing code and QR code for a device, then exit
--paired	List paired devices, then exit
--unpair ID	Remove a paired device by the ID --paired shows, then exit
--version	Print the version and exit
--selftest	Report whether each interface can be loaded, then exit
--overlay-probe	Report whether this machine can show the overlay, then exit
--overlay-doctor	Explain why the overlay is or is not drawing, then exit
--overlay-selftest	Draw a fixed test frame for 20 seconds, then exit

There is no option to redirect terminal output. Under --debug or --trace, plugin errors, unhandled exceptions and debug lines go to <data dir>/logs/error[_<profile>]_<YYYYMMDD>.log, and --trace adds trace lines such as each overlay frame. Without either flag no log file is written. Log files last written more than a week ago are deleted at start-up. To report a bug, reproduce it with --debug, or --trace if asked.

The interface flags are mutually exclusive, and passing one alongside a conflicting --mode is an error rather than a silent resolution.

Launcher shortcuts

There is one per interface — EDLD EDCARS, EDLD Dashboard, EDLD Terminal dashboard and EDLD Terminal text — each passing that interface's first flag. Server mode and config profiles add none: the server is a setting ([Server] Enabled) that runs beside whichever interface opens, and the profile is picked from the commander's name.

Platform	Where	Made by
Windows binary	Start menu → EDLD	the binary itself, on its first run and whenever it has moved or been updated
Linux	~/.local/share/applications/edld-*.desktop; the terminal ones open in a terminal	install.sh, or edld --shortcuts
macOS	— the app bundle is the launcher	—

EDLD-server gets one, EDLD-server, its terminal event log. On Windows the terminal shortcuts open a console window of their own.

--version and --selftest both answer before any config, journal or component work, so they run on a machine that has never started the game. The release workflow uses them to verify each published binary.

Environment variables

Variable	Effect
EDLD_KEEP_STDERR=1	Keep stdout and stderr attached in the dashboards and the desktop window
SSL_CERT_FILE	Override the CA bundle used for HTTPS verification
EDLD_INSTALL_GUI=yes|no	Answer install.sh's PySide6 prompt ahead of time
EDLD_SHORTCUTS=no	Stop install.sh adding the application-menu entries

The dashboards normally route stdout and stderr to /dev/null so terminal noise cannot corrupt the display. A startup failure is recorded in the diagnostic log regardless; EDLD_KEEP_STDERR=1 is for the rarer case where something fails before the log exists.

Packaged builds ship their own CA bundle, because a frozen binary's OpenSSL looks for certificates where the build machine kept them. SSL_CERT_FILE is respected if you set it — point it at your own root if you are behind a TLS-inspecting proxy. The startup log records which store is in use.

EDLD asks GitHub for the latest release at startup and every six hours while it runs, or 15 minutes after a check that failed. A newer release is shown in the Alerts panel, where it stays until cleared, and in EDAM's; in a bar below the menu (desktop window) or below the header (terminal dashboard); in the scrolling log (terminal); and, once, on Discord. A failed check is written to the diagnostic log under --debug. Updating is manual — take the new source or binary from the releases page, and re-run install.sh if you run from source.

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[Radio]

Stations for the Radio tab in the Crew / Alerts window, in both the terminal dashboard and the desktop window. [HOT] — the station list follows the file within a second of saving, with no restart.

Each station is two keys joined by an Id of your choosing:

Key	Meaning
Name_<Id>	What the station list shows. Optional — the Id is shown if it is missing
Url_<Id>	The stream address, http:// or https://. A .m3u or .pls playlist address also works; its first stream is played

The Id is a TOML bare key: letters, digits, _ and -, no spaces. It only has to pair the two lines up. Stations are listed in the order they appear, defaults first.

Three stations ship as defaults:

[Radio]
Name_RadioSidewinder = "Radio Sidewinder"
Url_RadioSidewinder  = "https://radiosidewinder.out.airtime.pro:8000/radiosidewinder_b"
Name_HuttonOrbital   = "Hutton Orbital Radio"
Url_HuttonOrbital    = "https://quincy.torontocast.com/hutton"
Name_RadioSkvortsov  = "Radio Skvortsov"
Url_RadioSkvortsov   = "https://cast1.torontocast.com:3225/stream"

Adding, editing and deleting from the Radio tab

The +, ✎ and − beside the station list do this for you, in both interfaces.

The Radio tab, playing, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

+ opens a form for the station's name and stream address, and where to keep it:

• Global — every profile (preselected) adds the pair to [Radio].
• Current profile adds it to the profile loaded now, as Radio.Name_<Id> / Radio.Url_<Id> lines under [EDP1], or inside [EDP1.Radio] if your file already has that table. It is unavailable when no profile is loaded.

The Id is made from the name — "Lave Radio" becomes LaveRadio — with a number added if that Id is already used anywhere in the file. A name already in the list, or an address that is not http(s):// with a host name, is refused with the reason.

✎ edits the selected station's name and stream address. The station keeps its Id, so it stays selected and stays the remembered station. The change is saved where the station already lives — the current profile if the profile defines it, otherwise [Radio] — and the form says which. Editing a default station writes its keys into [Radio], where they override the default and are not put back at startup. If the station is playing, a new address is tuned in straight away and a new name shows under On air at once; a name-only change does not interrupt the stream. The same checks as adding apply, except that a station's own name is not a clash with itself.

− deletes the selected station after asking. The confirmation says exactly what will change:

• a station you added is removed from [Radio], and from the current profile if it is defined there;
• a default station has its Url_ blanked instead of deleted, because deleted default lines are put back at startup (see below);
• a station that is playing is stopped first.

All three edit config.toml in place, changing only the station's own lines — your comments, spacing and every other setting are left exactly as they were. Before anything is written the result is parsed back and compared with what was intended; if the file is laid out in a way the editor cannot change safely, it says so and leaves the file untouched, and you can make the edit by hand as below.

Adding your own station by hand

Add a pair to [Radio] to have it everywhere:

[Radio]
Name_LaveRadio = "Lave Radio"
Url_LaveRadio  = "https://example.org:8000/stream"

Or add it to a profile to have it only when that profile is loaded, using the same dotted keys as any other profile setting:

[EDP1]
Radio.Name_MyStation = "My Station"
Radio.Url_MyStation  = "https://example.org:8000/stream"

A profile can also rename a default (Radio.Name_HuttonOrbital = "Hutton") or point it somewhere else.

Hiding a station

Set its URL to an empty string, globally or in a profile:

[EDP1]
Radio.Url_RadioSkvortsov = ""

Deleting a default station's lines from [Radio] does not remove it: like every other default, EDLD adds missing keys back to the section at startup. An empty URL is kept as you wrote it.

What plays

Streams must be MP3, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC. That covers most Icecast and SHOUTcast stations, including all three defaults. AAC, AAC+ and Opus stations, and HLS (.m3u8) streams, are refused with a message saying which format they are, rather than playing silence. To check a station before adding it:

curl -sI 'https://example.org:8000/stream' | grep -i content-type

audio/mpeg, audio/ogg, application/ogg and audio/flac will play.

Behavior

• Nothing plays until you press Play. The last station you chose is selected again at the next launch, but not started.
• Choosing another station while one is playing switches to it.
• Volume steps by 5%. Volume, mute and the last station are remembered in radio.json in the EDLD data directory, not in config.toml, so adjusting them never rewrites your config.
• A station that is hidden or has its URL changed while it is playing is stopped.
• Any new alert brings the Crew / Alerts tab back to the front. The radio keeps playing.
• The song title is shown where the station sends one (most do).
• An entry that cannot be used — a Name_ with no Url_, a URL that is not http(s)://, a key that is neither — is listed under Config in the Radio tab, not dropped silently.
• Playback needs the miniaudio package. It is installed by install.sh and bundled in the release binaries; if it is missing, the Radio tab says so and everything else works normally.

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Config Profiles

Profiles let you override any setting for a specific commander or purpose. Define them as named sections in config.toml:

[MyProfile]
Settings.JournalFolder = "/path/to/alternate/journals"
Discord.WebhookURL = 'https://discord.com/api/webhooks/...'
Discord.UserID = 123456789012345678
UI.Theme = "default-green"

Load explicitly with -p MyProfile, or name the profile after your commander name for automatic selection at startup.

Multiple profiles coexist in the same config file — useful for multi-account setups:

[EDP1]
Settings.JournalFolder = "/home/user/games/ED-Logs/EDP1"
Discord.WebhookURL = 'https://discord.com/api/webhooks/...'

[EDP2]
Settings.JournalFolder = "/home/user/games/ED-Logs/EDP2"
Discord.WebhookURL = 'https://discord.com/api/webhooks/...'

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Notes

• Fuel alerts trigger on either the percentage threshold or the estimated time-remaining threshold — whichever fires first.
• Duplicate suppression caps repeated identical Discord messages at 5 before switching to a suppression notice, preventing notification floods.
• Journal path (Linux/Proton): varies — use find ~/ -name "Journal*.log" to locate it.

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How the hold is read

Nothing here is configurable. It is written down because when the cargo manifest disagrees with the game, the reason is almost always one of these two.

Journals are read in filename order, not by modification time. Elite names them with an ISO timestamp, so they sort chronologically on their own. Modification times do not survive a copy, a sync, or a search-and-replace across the directory, and EDLD once rebuilt a hold from journals four months stale because the four newest by mtime were the four it had touched last.

The hold itself is followed from Cargo.json, not inferred from events. Journal events name a count and nothing else once the hold is large, so the manifest is reconstructed by replaying the recent journals and then taking Cargo.json — which the game rewrites whenever the hold changes — as the current word. That file is polled every two seconds alongside Market.json, so the manifest stays right even when the journal lags.

It is applied strictly by vessel. Cargo.json describes whichever hold last changed, ship or SRV, and the two are never mixed.

A journal that stops growing while the game runs costs everything the event stream carries — the game mode, the location, the session — even though the hold keeps updating. That is worth knowing because the usual cause is outside the game: a rotation, a sync, or an in-place edit of a file the game has open. Replacing such a file leaves the game writing to a handle that no longer has a name, and everything after that moment is invisible on disk.

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Market files

Three files are written into the commander's data directory — the same place as cargo.json and the window layout — and rewritten whenever the game writes a new Market.json. Nothing here is configurable; they are listed so you know where to find them and what they mean.

File	Contents
data/cargo.commodities.csv	Every commodity ever seen in a market
data/cargo.commodities.md	The sell table, as Markdown
data/cargo.commodities.html	The sell table, as a standalone HTML page

The catalog

Market.json is a snapshot of one station and is overwritten the next time you dock, so the galactic average it carries for each commodity is visible while you are standing there and gone afterwards. The CSV keeps a running record instead: one row per commodity, written once and rewritten whenever its MeanPrice drifts.

name,id,name_localised,category,category_localised,mean_price,first_seen,last_updated,updates
gold,128049154,Gold,metals,Metals,47113,2026-09-12T04:11:22Z,2026-09-12T04:11:22Z,0

Rows are keyed on name, the internal symbol, and the file is sorted by id so successive versions diff cleanly. updates counts how many times the price has moved since first_seen, which is the closest thing here to a volatility figure.

A commodity is recorded even when the market reports a MeanPrice of 0 — identity is worth having wherever it turns up — but a zero never overwrites a price already on file, so a carrier visit cannot flatten the catalog. Such a row heals itself the first time the commodity appears at a station market.

The sell table

The Markdown and HTML files are two renderings of what you would be shown by pressing Ctrl+S: a heading naming the market being quoted, and a two-column table of commodity against price, most valuable first. The HTML is standalone — no stylesheet to keep beside it — and follows your reader's light or dark preference.

The sell table, with example prices, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

Which market gets quoted is resolved the same way the Cargo panel prices your manifest, so the panel and these files can never name different markets: a Spansh target market when one is set and loaded, the station you are docked at otherwise, and the galactic average when there is neither.

Two things are deliberately left out.

Carrier markets. Fleet and squadron carriers are player-run, mobile, and rewritten without notice, so docking at one leaves the files and the popup describing whatever was quoting beforehand. The catalog still records a carrier's commodities; its prices just never reach the sell table.

Prices no NPC will pay. Stations list carrier-only commodities and quote a sell price for them that nobody in the galaxy will honor — the Titan Maw tissue samples list at over 470,000 cr at an ordinary starport. The tell is that they carry no galactic average, so any commodity the catalog has never seen an average for is left out of the table. This is not a demand filter: a station with nothing on order still pays, and filtering on demand would hide most of what is worth carrying.

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What a session is

Everything on Career's Session tab and every session figure on the overlay counts from the start of the current play session. A session starts at the LoadGame the game writes when a mode is picked, and ends with Shutdown (quit to desktop), with an exit to the main menu, or — when the game crashed and wrote neither — at the last event in its journal.

What comes next decides whether the next play is the same session:

• Back within 15 minutes — a bounce through the main menu, or a relaunch after a crash — and the session carries on.
• Longer than that, and the old session is over. EDLD decides at the launch, when the game opens its new journal, not when a mode is picked: the game can sit at the main menu for hours, and until then the session figures are cleared and the clock stands at zero. The new session counts from its LoadGame.

Ctrl+R resets the session by hand, and survives a restart of EDLD.

How income is counted

The session's Income section and the career Credits section count credits from the journal: what a market paid, a voucher redeemed, a mission rewarded, cartographic and organic data sold, and so on. Only money that reached the balance counts — a bounty voucher is income when it is redeemed, not when it is issued, because it can still be lost.

Unknown Credits

Some income is never written to the journal. Claiming a PowerPlay care package at a Power contact — 250,000 cr below rank 100, 500,000 cr above, plus credits for any materials that would not fit — logs nothing; the money just appears in the balance. EDLD finds such money by reconciliation and reports it as Unknown Credits, without guessing what it was.

• This session: the balance the game writes to Status.json is compared with every journal event that moves credits (core/credit_flows.py). When both have been quiet for ten seconds and the balance has risen by more than the journal explains, the difference is added under Unknown Credits. The journal is written in batches, so a line can arrive after the comparison; if it explains money already reported, that much is taken back.
• Career: at each LoadGame the game states the balance outright, so the career ledger compares it with the previous LoadGame of the same commander plus everything logged between them.

Only rises are counted. A fall the journal does not explain is a cost EDLD does not recognize, which is not income. Anything under a thousand credits is rounding and is ignored. The career figure covers every journal on disk, so it also holds whatever else the game ever paid without logging it; a journal file that is missing makes the next load's balance look like income too.

Data Contributions (opt-in)

All data contribution features are opt-in and disabled by default. They are configured in their own [SECTION] blocks and all require a restart when changed (❌). Settings can be managed in the Data tab of Options.

Options → Data, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

If you run EDLD on multiple machines reading the same journal share (e.g. a remote monitor over NFS), set PrimaryInstance = false in [Settings] on the secondary machine to prevent duplicate uploads. See [Settings] above.

The commander name sent to EDSM and Inara is the one in your journal; there is no setting for it.

Restarting EDLD does not upload anything twice. At startup EDLD reads the current journal from its first line, to know what has happened this game session. Each uploader remembers the time of the last journal event it handled — <uploader>.sent.json in the commander's data folder — and does not send anything from that read-through up to that time again. Started after the game, EDLD still sends what happened before it started.

When uploads are sent. EDSM, EDAstro and Inara collect events and send them together; EDDN sends each message as it is made. The collected events go out at every dock and undock — stations, fleet carriers and surface ports alike — when the FSD starts a hyperspace jump and on arrival, on a carrier jump, at a ship purchase or swap, when an SRV (Scarab, Nomad or Rhino) or fighter launches, docks or is destroyed, at death, and whenever the loadout changes (a module bought, sold, stored, retrieved or swapped). Each service's own rate limit still applies; Inara's is the slowest.

Nothing is dropped while a service is unreachable. Uploads that fail are kept in <uploader>.queue.jsonl in the same folder and tried again every few minutes, and at the next start.

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CAPI Integration

EDLD can connect to Frontier's Companion API (CAPI) to retrieve authoritative fleet data, market prices, carrier state, and squadron information.

Enabling CAPI

Use File → CAPI Authentication to complete the OAuth2 flow. You will be redirected to Frontier's login page in your browser. On success, tokens are

What CAPI provides (vs journal-only)

Data	CAPI enabled	CAPI disabled
Fleet roster	Authoritative — Frontier server	Most recent StoredShips event
Sold ship exclusion	Automatic	May show sold ships until next dock
Stored ship hull %	✓	✗
Stored ship rebuy cost	✓	✗
Current ship loadout	✓ (immediate)	✓ (from journal)
Stored ship loadout	✓ (from journal, CAPI-validated)	✓ (from journal, unvalidated)
Market prices	✓ (live on dock)	From Market.json
Squadron identity	✓	✗
Community goals signed up for, and your contribution	✓ (journal)	✓ (journal)
Community goals open to join	✓	From Inara, when enabled

Persisted CAPI data

After each poll, raw endpoint responses are written to fleet data is available immediately without waiting for a re-poll:

File	Source	Updated
capi_profile.json	/profile	Every dock
capi_market.json	/market	Every dock (outfitting station)
capi_shipyard.json	/shipyard	Every dock (outfitting station)
capi_fleetcarrier.json	/fleetcarrier	Every dock
capi_communitygoals.json	/communitygoals	Every dock, 5-min cooldown

Poll frequency

CAPI is polled on every dock event and 10 seconds after startup. Per-endpoint cooldowns prevent over-polling: profile/carrier 30s, market/shipyard 60s, community goals 300s.

Frontier requests no more than 1 query per minute in normal use. EDLD respects this by batching all endpoint polls on dock rather than polling continuously.

[EDDN]

Contributes exploration, market, outfitting, and shipyard data to the Elite Dangerous Data Network — the shared relay used by EDSM, Inara, and most third-party tools.

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	false	❌ Enable EDDN uploads
UploaderID	""	❌ Anonymous uploader tag shown in EDDN messages — defaults to your commander name if blank
TestMode	false	❌ Send to /test schemas only (development use)

---

[EDSM]

Uploads your flight log and discoveries to edsm.net. Requires a free EDSM account. Generate your API key at EDSM → Settings → API Key.

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	false	❌ Enable EDSM uploads
ApiKey	""	❌ Your EDSM API key

Events are batched and sent at the moments listed under When uploads are sent, and at login. A discard list is fetched from EDSM at startup so only requested events are sent.

---

[EDAstro]

Uploads exploration, Odyssey organic scan, and fleet carrier data to edastro.com. No account or API key required — uploads are anonymous.

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	false	❌ Enable EDAstro uploads
UploadCarrierEvents	false	❌ Include CarrierStatus and CarrierJumpRequest events — note that these reveal your carrier's location to EDAstro

An event-interest list is fetched from EDAstro at startup so only the events EDAstro wants are sent.

---

[Inara]

Uploads your flight log, ranks, credits, missions, and ship loadout to inara.cz. Requires a free Inara account. Generate your API key at inara.cz → Settings → API.

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	false	❌ Enable Inara uploads
ApiKey	""	❌ Your Inara API key

Inara allows two requests a minute; EDLD's uploads and its community-goal fetch share that allowance. If Inara answers "Too much requests" it has paused the key for an hour — usually because another tool is updating the same profile — and EDLD keeps the events and sends nothing until the hour is up, a restart included, rather than prolonging the pause.

---

[Colonisation]

Syncs colonization construction supply needs and commander contributions to Raven Colonial — a community tool for tracking colonization projects. Local tracking of resource requirements and delivery progress works without an API key.

Note: Colonization support is experimental and under active development.

Key	Default	Description
ApiKey	""	Your Raven Colonial API key — obtain from ravencolonial.com → Account Settings. Leave blank to disable API sync; local tracking is always active

The API key can be set at runtime via Options → Data → Raven Colonial API Key without restarting EDLD.

---

Data contributions inside profiles

Each of these sections can be scoped to a profile like any other setting, as dotted keys under the profile's own header:

[EDP1]
EDDN.Enabled       = true
EDSM.Enabled       = true
EDSM.ApiKey        = "your-api-key-here"
EDAstro.Enabled    = true
Inara.Enabled      = true
Inara.ApiKey       = "your-api-key-here"

The older [EDP1.EDDN] sub-table form still loads, and EDLD rewrites it into this form the first time it reads the file, line by line, keeping every comment.

---

Session Management — [SessionMgmt]

⚠️ Solo mode only. Session management terminates the Elite Dangerous game process when a trigger fires. It is hard-gated to Solo play — it will never act in Open or Private Group, because force-quitting in multiplayer is combat-logging under Frontier's rules. The gate is enforced at the point of termination, so even a manual activation is refused outside Solo.

Disabled by default and entirely opt-in. Every key is hot: a change applies within a second of saving, with no restart. When enabled, EDLD watches the configured triggers and quits the game — locally via process termination, or on a remote host via SSH — when one is met. See the Session Management guide for usage, the Ctrl+K runtime toggle, and the armed/idle indicator.

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	false	Master enable. With this off, every trigger is inert
QuitOnSLFDead	false	Quit when your ship-launched fighter is destroyed in a fight — not when it is left out of range or behind by a jump (see Session Management)
QuitOnLowFuel	false	Quit when main-tank fuel drops to or below the percentage threshold
QuitOnLowFuelPercent	20	Fuel percentage at or below which the fuel trigger fires
QuitOnLowFuelMinutes	0	If non-zero, also require estimated burn-time remaining to be at or below this many minutes before the fuel trigger fires (more conservative). 0 disables the time condition
QuitFuelSCGraceSeconds	60	Suppress fuel quits while in supercruise and for this many seconds after exiting it
QuitOnLowHull	false	Quit when the hull drops to or below the hull threshold — the SRV's while you are driving one, since an SRV lost with cargo aboard is a loss too
QuitOnLowHullThreshold	10	Hull percentage at or below which the hull trigger fires
RemoteKillHost	""	SSH host on which to terminate the game (for a remote/secondary monitor instance). Blank terminates locally
RemoteKillUser	""	SSH user for RemoteKillHost. Blank uses the current user
QuitOnNoKillsMinutes	0	Minutes without an NPC kill while dropped in a Resource Extraction Site before the session is quit. 0 disables. Solo-only and RES-only — see the guide

Like any section, these can be scoped to a profile — handy for enabling termination on one commander only, or for keeping a remote monitor inert:

[SessionMgmt]
Enabled = false

[EDP1]
SessionMgmt.Enabled              = true
SessionMgmt.QuitOnLowFuel        = true
SessionMgmt.QuitOnLowFuelPercent = 15

---

Settings documented with their features

Three sections are covered in full beside the feature they configure:

Section	Where
[SurfaceSurvey]	SURFACE_SURVEY.md — Settings
[Overlay] and [OverlayPanels]	STREAMER_STATS_OVERLAY.md — Settings

---

Routes — [Navigation]

Key	Default	Description
AutoReplot	true	Plot an FSD or neutron route again from where you are, to the same destination, when you leave it or change ship
WarnWrongTarget	true	Say when the system targeted is not the next on EDLD's route (one further along is taken as deliberate)
CheckPermits	true	Look every plotted route's systems up on Spansh for permit locks
SurveyArrival	true	On arriving at a survey stop, say what is left to do there

On the Routes tab in Options.

Options → Routes, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

Callouts — [Callouts]

Key	Default	Description
Sounds	true	Play a short chime with callouts
Volume	70	Their volume, percent
TargetSound	true	A chime on targeting a system: never reported, not fully scanned, or done
FirstsWatch	true	Undiscovered systems, first mappings, untrodden ground
CodexCallout	true	Genera new to your codex in the region
UnfinishedRun	true	Warn on heading for supercruise from a body with a sample run unfinished
SafeToSample	true	Say when you are far enough from every earlier sample for the next
ProspectorMinerals	"Platinum, Painite, …"	Minerals a prospected rock is called out for
ProspectorPercent	20	…at this share of the rock or more
Motherlodes	true	Call out a rock with a core
HoldWarning	true	Say when the hold is 90% full, and full
RingCallout	true	On dropping into a ring: its type, reserves, hotspots, and your yields in rings of that type
LimpetReminder	true	Warn on undocking with a limpet controller fitted and no limpets aboard — once per ship until it next leaves with limpets. A ship with no controller is never reminded
LimpetProspector, LimpetCollection, LimpetMining, LimpetOperations, LimpetRescue, LimpetXeno, LimpetUniversal, LimpetRepair, LimpetFuelTransfer, LimpetHatchBreaker, LimpetDecontamination, LimpetRecon, LimpetResearch	true	Which types of controller count: prospector, collector, the mining, operations, rescue, xeno and universal multi-limpets, repair, fuel transfer, hatch breaker, decontamination, recon and research. One switch per type, whatever its size and class

How loud each is, and whether it reaches Discord, is its level under [LogLevels].

Options → Callouts, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

Journal backups — [Backups]

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	true	Copy every new or grown journal, compressed, at startup, hourly, and when the game shuts down
Folder	""	Where; blank is journal-backups in EDLD's data folder

Copies are never deleted. Back up now on the Backups tab runs one at once.

Options → Backups, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

EDSM flight log — [EDSMGaps]

Key	Default	Description
Days	30	How far back Find and fill gaps looks

The button compares the jumps in your journals with EDSM's flight log and sends EDSM the ones it lacks, through the EDSM uploads (which must be on).

Options → EDSM Log, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

Automation — [Automation]

Off until you turn it on. See AUTOMATION.md.

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	false	Let EDLD press the game's keys at all
AssumeFocus	false	For a desktop that cannot say which window has the focus
BindingsDir	""	The game's Options/Bindings folder; blank finds it from the journal folder
AutoHonk	false	Honk on arriving in a system you have never honked or mapped
HonkTrigger	"PrimaryFire"	The trigger the discovery scanner is on
HonkFireGroup	0	Its fire group, 1–8; 0 uses the one selected
AutoTarget	false	After a supercharge on a neutron route, plot the galaxy map to the next stop
PlotScript	""	The galaxy-map key sequence; blank uses the built-in one
AllowControl	false	Let paired EDAM devices press keys from their Helm panel. EDLD's own Helm panel needs only Enabled

Options → Automation, desktop window

The same in the terminal dashboard

Commander dossier — [Dossier]

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	true	Write the dossier: a web page and Markdown files about the commander, under <data>/commanders/<FID>/dossier/
IncludeCurrentLocation	false	Include where the commander, the current ship and the fleet carrier are now, and the carrier's jump history. Stored ships are always listed where they are kept
IncludeBalance	false	Include the credit balance, total wealth, and the carrier's bank

Changes take effect without a restart. See DOSSIER.md.

Server mode — [Server]

Full reference, pairing, networking and the protocol: SERVER.md.

Serves this EDLD's dashboards to paired EDAM devices over TLS. Off unless Enabled = true or -s is passed.

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	false	Serve on every start, as if -s were passed
Port	28510	TCP port. Each profile that serves at the same time needs its own
BindAddress	""	Blank listens on every interface, IPv6 and IPv4
ExternalHost	""	Name or address a device uses away from home, e.g. yourname.duckdns.org; put into the pairing code
AllowEndSession	false	Let a paired device end the game session (Solo only)
PortMapping	false	Ask the router to forward Port by NAT-PMP or UPnP
DuckDNSDomain	""	Keep this DuckDNS name pointed at your address…
DuckDNSToken	""	…with this token. Never written to any log

All of these are also on the Server tab in Options, in both interfaces.