Read-Only Mode#
The first time you talk to Ava, no wallet connection happens. You paste an address; Ava reads what's publicly on-chain. That's it. We call this read-only mode.
Why this exists#
Most crypto tools start with "connect your wallet" — a fair ask once you trust them, a deal-breaker before. Ava is built so you can use it, see what it sees, and decide whether to trust it before you sign anything.
What Ava can do in read-only mode#
- Map your portfolio across protocols. Open positions on Aave, LP positions on Uniswap V3, staked ETH on Lido, idle balances, token holdings — all surfaced as a plain-English summary.
- Flag risk. Health factors getting low, idle assets earning 0%, old unlimited approvals you no longer use.
- Explain what it sees. Ask follow-ups: "how risky is that?", "what would happen if ETH dropped 10%?", "which approval should I worry about first?"
- Send alerts. Ava pings you when a risk it's watching needs attention — without any signature. Alert settings in Telegram (
/alerts) are coming soon.
What Ava cannot do in read-only mode#
- Move funds. No on-chain action of any kind. No swaps, no supplies, no withdrawals, no approvals. Read-only is read-only.
- Change approvals. Including revoking risky ones — Ava can flag them, and when you ask, it prepares the revocation for you to sign from your own wallet on the web. That's a Manual action, not read-only.
- Open or close positions. Ava can explain what a top-up would do, but it can't execute anything until you sign the transaction yourself (Manual mode) or set up Auto mode.
What you give up#
Nothing dangerous. The trade-offs are:
- Ava can warn you, but it can't help you act fast. If your health factor (HF) drops to 1.1 at 3am, read-only Ava can text you — but you'll have to wake up and act yourself. To have Ava act, you either sign each transaction yourself (Manual) or fund an Ava smart wallet and sign an agent permission that lets always-on protection act from it (Auto). See Permissions & Limits.
- Ava only sees what's public. It doesn't know about your CEX balances or off-chain assets unless you tell it.
When you'd graduate to Manual or Auto#
Most people are happy in read-only for a while. The reasons to move on are:
- You want to act on what Ava finds — supply idle USDC to Aave, revoke a stale approval — with Ava preparing the transaction for you (Manual).
- You don't want to be woken up by alerts — you'd rather Ava just fix a falling health factor from an Ava smart wallet you fund, under an agent permission you've signed, and email you a summary after it repays (Auto).
- You hold a position that can drop fast (high leverage, volatile collateral) and want protection that doesn't wait for you. Auto health-factor protection checks hourly.
In Manual mode you sign each transaction yourself. In Auto mode, every action Ava takes on its own — one-off actions and always-on jobs like health-factor protection — runs from a separate Ava smart wallet you fund, under an agent permission you sign (with its contracts and an expiry), enforced on-chain; turning it off stops Ava using it. Auto can only use what you put in the smart wallet. Walk through it in Quick Start or jump to Permissions & Limits for the safety details.