Torchlight: an AI assistant inside the Ignition 8.3 Designer

3rd Party Modules
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Hi all,

Torch Automation is happy to introduce Torchlight, a third-party module for Ignition 8.3 that adds an AI assistant panel to the Designer. You describe what you want in plain language, and it reads the open project and makes the changes in front of you as unsaved Designer edits. Review them, keep what you like, then save.

Why we built it

There are plenty of ways to use AI with Ignition today. Ours was a local dev Gateway with Claude Code working on the project files on disk. After each round of changes we'd trigger a project scan to see them in the Designer, then export the project and import it into the real environment. That works well, but it means an extra tool, an extra Gateway, and a few manual steps between asking for a change and seeing it.

Torchlight puts the assistant in the Designer. It works on the open project directly, its changes show up as unsaved edits right away, and you review and save them like any other edit. There's no file-system access to set up, no project scan, and no separate tool to run alongside the Designer.

What it can do

  • Build and edit Perspective views, Vision windows, project scripts, named queries, reports, alarm pipelines, SFC charts, and more
  • Explain projects, tags, gateway logs and tag history
  • Check its own work: screenshots of what it built, read-only database queries, log reads, test runs of named queries
  • Tools for a module only load when that module is installed (Perspective, Vision, Reporting, WebDev, Event Streams, SFC, etc.)

Guardrails

  • Project changes land as unsaved edits. Nothing is committed until you save.
  • Tag changes are off by default. An admin turns them on under Home → Torchlight → Settings.
  • Every change it makes is recorded in a change log on the Gateway: time, Designer user, project, what was asked and what was done.
  • Changes that do go live right away (enabled tag edits, running a test query, etc.) are marked as such so you know before they happen.

Your key, your data

Torchlight uses your own Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI API key, stored encrypted on the Gateway. Requests go from your Gateway straight to the provider you choose. Your project never goes through us. You pick the model per Designer user.

What about Catalyst?

IA has previewed Catalyst for Ignition 2027, and from what's been shared it looks like a great step for the platform: AI assistance built into the Designer, your choice of model, and approval before changes are applied. We'll be watching it closely.

Torchlight is for the systems running today:

  • It runs on Ignition 8.3, which IA has said contains no native AI features and which remains the long-term support version. Many sites will be on 8.3 for a while, and Torchlight brings an AI assistant to the Designer there now.
  • It's available now, not with the 2027 release.

If you're planning to move to 2027 soon, Catalyst may cover what you need. If you're staying on 8.3, that's who we built this for.

Trial and licensing

Requirements

Ignition 8.3, the Designer, and an Anthropic or OpenAI API key.

Feedback and feature requests are always welcome, either here or at sales@torch-automation.com.

Jeremy
Torch Automation