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Use this guide when you want agents to run on another machine, such as a workstation or a build box, while you work from this one. Each machine runs its own host. Once both hosts are on your account, one Traycer window can start and follow work on either. You can also operate Traycer from your phone to follow and steer work on either machine. See Mobile App for setup and sign-in.

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Before You Start

  • Traycer Desktop installed and signed in on this machine. See Install.
  • A terminal on the other machine, with Node.js 22.13 or newer for the npm install, or Homebrew on macOS and Linux.
  • On a Linux machine, systemd: the host runs as a systemd user service.
  • The code you want agents to work on, checked out on the other machine.

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Set Up and Use the Second Machine

1

Open Add host

On this machine, open Settings (⌘, / Ctrl+,). In the host picker at the top of the Host group, choose Add host….
2

Install the host on the other machine

Run the commands the dialog lists, in a terminal on the other machine:
When the host joins your account, the dialog shows Host connected. Click Set up host to open its Overview, and rename it with the pencil (Edit name) if the name isn’t clear. If the dialog shows Host registered instead, the host is in your account but this window has no live connection to it: Set up host still opens its settings, but check the connection before you start agents there. If traycer host ensure can’t register the host, or it doesn’t connect, run traycer host doctor there. See Remote hosts.
3

Choose where new work starts

To start new work on the other machine by default, click Activate on its Overview; this changes the active host for every window. To keep the active host and use the other machine for one piece of work, pick it in the host picker of the start-page composer, the new agent dialog, New terminal, or Fork agent.
4

Start a Task there

On the start page, pick the other machine in the composer’s host picker, click Add folder, and choose a folder on that machine. Choose a run location, write the prompt, and send. You can follow the agent live from any of your devices while its host is reachable. To open a shell on that machine, click New terminal in the Terminals panel and pick its host.
5

Open its dev server here

When an agent starts a dev server on the other machine, ask it to forward the port, for example “forward the dev server to my laptop”. The forward appears in the agent’s Background panel as Forwarding; click Open localhost:<port> in the browser. Only agents on the Chat interface can forward ports. See Port forwarding.
6

Let agents work across both

An agent can also start a child agent or a worktree on another of your machines, run a command there, or copy files between machines. Ask for it in the prompt. What works across machines is covered in Agent-to-Agent.
7

Keep going when a machine is offline

An agent on the Chat interface whose host is offline opens read-only from its last published copy. Click Clone agent to continue in a new agent on the active host; the original stays bound to its own host. Files and uncommitted changes stay on the original machine. A Terminal-interface agent can’t move; it becomes available again when its host is back. A terminal on that machine is closed, so start a new one later. See Sync and offline.
Each host updates on its own. Turn on Auto-update for each machine in Settings › Host › Overview › Updates. See Overview.