Documentation
How Skyhood reads orbit, what every number means, and how orders settle on Robinhood Chain.
Overview
Skyhood puts the view from orbit next to the stock token. It has three parts: free open data (Copernicus Sentinel-2, read straight from the source files), Sky Signals for fifteen facilities behind Robinhood Chain stock tokens, and SkyDesk, an order desk on Robinhood Chain where buyers escrow ETH for imagery and analytics and any provider can deliver.
Open data
Every Sentinel-2 Level-2A capture since 2017 is searchable through the Earth Search STAC catalog on AWS Open Data. Skyhood asks it for captures over your box, newest first, filtered by the tile's cloud cover. When you open a capture, Skyhood reads the scene's true-colour cloud-optimized GeoTIFF: it fetches only the 1024 x 1024 tiles that cover your square with HTTP range requests, inflates them, and cuts the square out at the native 10 m pixel (or the closest overview level for big squares). The pixels are not sharpened, recoloured or generated.
The map underneath is the Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 mosaic by EOX. It is a picture of 2016; the captures are what is there now.
Sky Signals
For each stock site Skyhood lists the captures of the last 120 days, one per day (overlapping tiles of the same pass are merged), and reads the scene classification band (SCL, 20 m) over the site's own square. A capture is usable when the square is at least 90% clear and under 2% no-data. Classes counted against it: cloud medium and high probability, thin cirrus, cloud shadow, no data and saturated pixels.
This is why a 6% tile cloud can still be a bad capture for one site, and a 40% tile cloud a perfect one.
Change maps
A change map compares two captures of the same square. Each capture's colours are normalised to its own mean and spread (so a brighter day does not count as change), the distance between the two normalised colours is taken per pixel, and pixels over 1.25 standard deviations count as changed. No-data and blown-out cloud tops are left out, and a 3 x 3 majority filter drops isolated pixels. Seasons move vegetation, so read a change map with the dates in mind: construction pads and new roofs stand out, fields and desert scrub move with the weather.
SkyDesk
SkyDesk is one contract on Robinhood Chain. A buyer opens a request with:
- a kind: Archive Image, New Tasking or Analytics
- a box (west, south, east, north, at most 2 x 2 degrees)
- optionally the stock token the site belongs to
- a delivery deadline between one hour and a year away
- terms, up to 400 characters: resolution, window, what to count
- the reward, sent with the transaction and held by the contract
Any wallet except the buyer's can deliver before the deadline: a link (https, ipfs or ar) and the SHA-256 of the file, so the buyer can check the file is the one delivered. The buyer then accepts (the reward less 5% is credited to the provider) or rejects with a reason inside three days. A delivery left alone past three days can be claimed by its provider. A buyer with no delivery waiting on review can cancel and is credited the full reward. Credits are withdrawn with one call.
Providers
If you hold archive access, a tasking account or an analytics pipeline, open the desk, pick an open request and deliver. Watermarked previews are fine until you are paid: the link is public on chain. Deliveries are capped at 32 per request.
Pins
A pin records a Sentinel-2 scene id, a point, an optional stock token and a note (up to 280 characters) as a Pinned event from your wallet. It stores nothing else and costs gas only. Use it to fix the date of what you saw.
Sky API
Free, no key, JSON and JPEG. Captures never change, so crops and change maps are cached for a year at the edge. Base URL https://skyhood.net/api/v1.
GET /sites
Every stock site with its coordinates, square, stock token symbol and Robinhood Chain token address.
curl https://skyhood.net/api/v1/sites
GET /sites/{id}?limit=8
One site, its recent captures (newest first) with the site's own cloud read, and latest, the newest usable one.
curl https://skyhood.net/api/v1/sites/tsla-giga-texas
{
"ok": true,
"site": { "id": "tsla-giga-texas", "symbol": "TSLA", "lat": 30.2218, "lon": -97.6175, "km": 4, ... },
"latest": { "id": "S2C_14RPU_20261106_0_L2A", "datetime": "2026-11-06T17:15:23.574Z",
"site": { "cloud": 0.021, "shadow": 0.014, "nodata": 0, "clear": 0.965 }, "usable": true, ... },
"captures": [ ... ]
}
GET /crop?scene={id}&site={site}&px=480
A JPEG of the site square from that capture. Or any square: &lat=..&lon=..&km=4 (0.5 to 12 km). px is 120 to 800.
curl -o giga.jpg "https://skyhood.net/api/v1/crop?scene=S2C_14RPU_20261106_0_L2A&site=tsla-giga-texas"
GET /change?site={site}&a={scene}&b={scene}
The share of the site that changed between two captures; add &img=1 for the map. Without a and b it compares the oldest and newest usable captures.
GET /scenes?bbox=w,s,e,n&days=45&cloud=60&limit=12
Captures over any box up to about 5 x 5 degrees: id, time, satellite, tile cloud, MGRS tile, footprint and preview.
POST /rpc
A read-only JSON-RPC proxy to Robinhood Chain (chain 4663) for pages that cannot call the node directly. Writes are refused: wallets send their own transactions.
Contracts
SkyDesk launches on Robinhood Chain soon; its address, source and verification link go here and in /contracts.json.
| Function | Who | What it does |
|---|---|---|
open(kind, box, stock, deadline, spec) | Buyer | Opens a request; msg.value is the reward |
deliver(id, uri, contentHash) | Provider | Posts a delivery before the deadline |
accept(id, d) | Buyer | Pays delivery d; the request is filled |
reject(id, d, reason) | Buyer | Turns delivery d down within 3 days |
claim(id, d) | Provider | Takes the reward for an unreviewed delivery after 3 days |
cancel(id) | Buyer | Closes a request with nothing waiting on review; full refund |
withdraw() | Anyone owed | Sends everything credited to the caller |
pin(sceneId, lat, lon, stock, note) | Anyone | Emits a dated, signed record of a capture |
page(before, n), getRequest(id), getDeliveries(id) | Read | What the desk page shows |
Owner settings: the fee (capped at 10% in the contract, set to 5%), the treasury and the minimum reward. The owner cannot move escrowed rewards, change a request, or pay a delivery.
FAQ
Is the imagery live?
As live as orbit allows: Sentinel-2 passes every place every five days or so, and captures reach the catalog a few hours after the pass. Cloud decides which passes are usable.
Is this a SpaceX, Tesla or any listed company's product?
No. Skyhood watches public facilities from public open data. The companies named here are not involved and do not endorse Skyhood.
Is this investment advice?
No. A capture shows what a site looked like on a date. What it means for a stock is your call.
Can I get sub-metre imagery here?
Through SkyDesk, from any provider who fills your request. Skyhood itself serves open data only.