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Managing several hosts

Nothing stops at one host. A laptop, a desktop and a VPS can all be hosts at the same time, and one app switches between them.

What Offsite does not do is orchestrate across them. Each host owns its own workspaces, sessions and boards; switching hosts switches which machine you are looking at. There is no cross-host scheduler and no shared session pool.

The host list

Section titled “The host list”

Every host in the sidebar shows:

  • its name — the machine’s own name, not a role,
  • the path currently in use (local network, Tailscale or relay) with its latency,
  • a warmth badge.
Badge Meaning
Warm a connection is established and ready
Warming connecting, or reconnecting after a drop
Cold no connection right now

Offsite keeps hosts you use warm so switching is instant rather than a fresh login every time.

Adding hosts

Section titled “Adding hosts”

Each host is set up individually and holds its own copy of the host components.

Choosing what runs where

Section titled “Choosing what runs where”

A rough guide that holds up in practice:

You want Put the host on
iOS work — Simulator, deploy to phone, Computer Use a Mac
Long unattended runs a machine that never travels
Web/backend work only anything, including a cheap VPS
Work on the repo you are editing locally the machine that has the repo

Sessions do not move between hosts. Your repository lives on one machine, and the agents that work on it live there too.

Details

Section titled “Details”
  • Host connection profiles carry endpoint kinds lan, tailscale and relay; the client races them and uses the winner. See How your devices reach your host.
  • Each device pairs with each host separately. Pairing your iPhone with host A says nothing about host B.
  • Host settings — relay on/off, always reachable, sleep control, version and update — are per host, not global.
  • Known limitation: adding a host on iOS can displace an existing one. If you run several hosts, add them on the Mac.