Machines

A machine is a computer that runs Timon's daemon: your laptop, a desktop at home, a server. The Machines plugin lets one Timon interface (the desktop app, a browser tab or the app installed on your phone) switch from one machine to another, in the same window. Nothing is merged: each machine keeps its own agents, projects, missions, settings and theme, and you see one machine at a time.

Typical use: a server works around the clock on long missions, and you follow it from the Timon you already use on your computer or phone, without opening another address. To set such a server up, see Run Timon on a headless server.

Turn it on

Machines ships with Timon, is off by default, and requires a paid licence: Free does not include it. Turn it on from its card in Plugins, on the computer whose interface you use. If your licence does not include it, its card says Not included in your licence. The machines you drive do not need it: they only need to authorize your computer as a connected device.

Once on, it adds Settings → Plugins → Machines and a machine selector at the foot of the navigation menu.

Add a machine

1. On the other machine, signed in directly on it, open Settings → Access & network → Devices and choose Authorize a new device. A one-time code appears, valid 5 minutes. When that machine's daemon is published with tailscale serve, the card also shows the address to enter; when it is not, Make this machine reachable publishes it on your tailnet only (never on the internet) and shows that address — installing Tailscale and signing it in first if needed (Connected devices).
2. On this computer, open Settings → Plugins → Machines → Add a machine (or Settings → Access & network → Devices → Enter a code from another machine, which leads there), and enter:
   • the address of the other machine's daemon, for example https://my-server.my-tailnet.ts.net:8443: the address alone, with no login, query or fragment, and its final form (a redirect is refused);
   • the pairing code;
   • a name, if you want one other than the machine's own.
3. Pair. The machine joins the list, with its state and its Timon version.

The address must be HTTPS, with a valid certificate: tailscale serve, a reverse proxy such as Caddy or nginx, or a Cloudflare Tunnel all provide one. Plain HTTP is refused, even on a private network; it is only accepted for a Timon on this same computer. Run Timon on a headless server gives the tailscale serve recipe.

Pairing the same address again (with a new code) keeps the machine in place and replaces its access: use it when a machine says it no longer accepts this computer.

Switch machines

Open the selector at the foot of the navigation menu: it shows the active machine and its state. Pick a machine: the whole interface reloads as that machine's, in the same window (an installed phone app stays in its window), on the last page you viewed on that machine. This computer brings you back.

Each machine keeps its own last page, in this browser or app: switching from a conversation on one machine to the Kanban on another, then back, reopens that conversation. A machine you have never opened here starts on the home page. If the page you left names something deleted since on that machine (a conversation, an agent, a task, a group), you land on the main page of that section instead, such as the chat or the Missions list. The Settings dialog you switched from is not reopened.

On another machine, the selector reads as account: the account you act as there, the one that authorized this computer. It can differ from your account on this computer.

The choice is kept by this browser or app until you switch again or sign out: signing out always brings the interface back to this computer.

Several windows in the desktop app

In the desktop app, each window drives its own machine: with three screens, keep one window per screen, each on a different machine, without switching back and forth.

• Open a window: right-click Timon in the taskbar or the dock and choose New window (Windows: the taskbar's jump list; Linux: the dock or app grid menu, GNOME and KDE; macOS: the Dock menu). Also New window in the tray menu (and the File menu on macOS), Ctrl+Shift+N (Cmd+Shift+N on macOS), or launch Timon again while it is running. The new window opens on the machine you chose last. If Timon was updated while it was running, it asks you to quit and reopen it first.
• Open a page in a new window: in the navigation menu, Shift+click or a middle click on an entry (the Kanban board, the missions, an agent's chat…) opens that page in a new window on the same machine, ready to drag to another screen. This works with a single machine too.
• Choose its machine: the selector at the foot of the menu switches this window only; the others stay where they are. The window's title names its machine.
• Switch back instantly: a window keeps the last three machines you showed in it open in the background. Coming back to one is instant and finds it exactly as you left it: the page, the scroll position, a message you had not sent, the panels you had opened. A fourth machine closes the one you used least recently; going back to it later reopens it on the last page you viewed there. Each machine kept open uses memory, about as much as a browser tab running Timon. If a page you are closing that way has unsaved changes, Timon asks first.
• Get them back: when you quit Timon, it remembers each window: its screen, size, whether it was maximized, and its machine. At the next launch they reopen as they were. A window whose screen is no longer connected opens on a screen you can see. Closing windows one by one before quitting forgets them, except the last one. A window opened on a page reopens on the home page of its machine.

A web browser or the installed web app keeps one machine for all its tabs, the one chosen last in it.

What follows the active machine

Everything you work with: agents, projects, missions and chats, the Kanban, settings, the built-in terminal (a shell on that machine), its notifications centre, its plugins, and its licence screen.

So does the account you act as there: the screen layout (widgets, islands, columns, menu) is that account's, the same one you get when you open that machine directly and the one its agents read and propose; what you may do (administration pages, buttons greyed for lack of a right) follows that account's rights; and missions started there with that account show as yours.

Light or dark mode follows the machine too, like its primary colour: each machine keeps its own, so with several desktop windows one can be light and another dark. Switching the mode in a window changes it for that machine only. A machine where you never chose one shows this computer's mode until you do.

The built-in browser of a project, opened from a browser or the installed web app, shows and drives the browser of the active machine, as it does on this computer. That machine must have the Timon desktop app running, since the desktop app runs the built-in browser. In the desktop app's own window, see Known limits.

What stays on this computer

• Your sign-in. You sign in on this computer; your avatar, profile, password and Sign out are this computer's account's.
• The list of machines, which belongs to your account on this computer: someone else signed in here does not see yours.
• Third-party plugins' interfaces: see below.

States and warnings

Each machine shows a state in the selector and in Settings → Plugins → Machines: Online, Unreachable, Access revoked, Certificate refused, Error, or Not checked yet. Check now asks again.

What happens	What you see
The active machine stops answering	A banner while you work; at the next load, a screen with Try again and Back to this computer. Nothing is lost on that machine
The machine revoked this computer, or its access expired	A screen saying it no longer accepts this computer: pair it again
The machine runs a Timon too old for this interface	The switch is refused, or a screen asks you to update that machine
The machine runs a newer Timon than this interface	It works; a banner suggests updating this interface
The machine's licence has ended	Its licence screen, which says it is that machine's licence, with a way back to this computer

Notifications

A notification raised on a machine of your list reaches you through this computer: its card appears in this computer's notification centre, its title starting with the machine's name, and push notifications reach the phones subscribed here.

• Approve / Deny on a push notification answers the machine that asked, whatever machine the interface shows.
• Opening a notification switches the interface to its machine first.
• Only cards for your account there, or for no one in particular, are relayed. Cards older than the pairing are not pushed.
• This computer must be on. It is the one that relays: while it is off, the other machines' cards wait in their own notification centres.

Third-party plugins

On another machine, a third-party plugin's interface loads only if the same signed version of that plugin is installed and enabled on this computer. Otherwise the plugin's card in Plugins is marked To approve on this computer: install and enable that version here, then reload. This keeps a machine of your list from running code in this interface that you never approved here. Plugins built into Timon are not concerned.

Rename or remove a machine

In Settings → Plugins → Machines, Rename changes the name shown here only. Remove revokes this computer's access on that machine and erases what this browser kept for it. If the machine cannot be reached at that moment, it is removed here anyway: revoke this computer in that machine's Settings → Access & network → Devices.

Security

• A paired computer has all the rights of the account that authorized it, administration included. Give a code only to a computer you control, and only for an account whose rights you mean to grant.
• HTTPS, always. The access a machine grants never travels in clear. Keep each daemon on its loopback and publish it through tailscale serve (your devices only) rather than on the internet.
• This computer keeps the access to each machine of your list, encrypted in its secrets vault. It never gives it to the browser, and it never sends this computer's own credentials to another machine.
• Revoke what you no longer use, from the other machine's Connected devices, or by removing the machine here. An access unused for 90 days expires by itself.

Known limits

• In the desktop app's window, the built-in browser keeps showing this computer's browser after you switch to another machine. To use another machine's built-in browser, open Timon in a web browser or in the installed web app.
• With several desktop windows, the built-in browser panel shows in the first window open only (the oldest); it moves to the next one when that window closes.
• A switch reopens the page, not its scroll position.
• Approving a third-party plugin on this computer while you are on another machine takes effect at the next reload.