Remote hosts

A host is another machine that runs agents for you: a Mac mini at home, a build box, a cloud VM. Ask atlas to do something on the mini, close your laptop, take the subway. The work keeps going, and syncs back when you reconnect.

Add a host

Any machine you can reach over SSH works. Tailscale makes that easy from anywhere.

axel host add mini     # `mini` is an SSH host alias
axel host ls

This copies Axel over, installs what's missing (Node, Claude Code, the ACP adapter) and records the machine with its host key. Log in to Claude Code once on the host, from a pane of its own Rex, because the keychain isn't reachable over SSH:

rex -S mini run -- claude    # then /login

For a host that should survive reboots and power cuts unattended, have it log in automatically, keep the Rex server running at login, and disable key expiry for it in your Tailscale admin console.

Ask an agent to run there

› profile the import job and make it faster @atlas@mini

Or make it atlas's default, so a plain @atlas runs it there:

axel agent edit atlas --host mini       # `--host local` brings it home

@atlas@local runs it on your laptop for one thread. From the command line: axel thread new … --host mini, axel thread spawn … --host mini.

What happens

1. The thread is shared with the host.
2. The code goes as a snapshot of your working tree (tracked and untracked files, not ignored ones), pushed over SSH into a repository on the host. Your index and branches aren't touched.
3. The agent starts in a worktree on its own branch, in a managed session on the host's Rex, on autopilot: nobody is there to answer prompts, and the guard hook still runs. Its permissions and budget and the agents it may reach go with it. Rex on the host notifies you when a turn ends or something needs you.
4. Your laptop follows along while the host has live sessions: the thread view streams as if the agent ran locally. It backs off while the laptop sleeps and catches up after.

Prompts, steering, approvals and messages you send to that session are relayed to the host. When you're back, its branch (and any uncommitted work) is fetched home.

Agents on the host can message agents on your laptop: those messages are delivered when your laptop syncs, under the sender's permissions.

Keys never leave home

atlas's private key stays in your laptop's keychain. For each job, the host makes a fresh job key, and atlas signs a delegation to it: "this key may sign as me, on this thread only, for the next 7 days". Every copy of the thread verifies that delegation before it trusts anything the host signed.

A delegation can't create threads, can't touch other threads, and expires on its own. axel host rm mini stops new jobs.

Moving a running session

axel session move <session> --to mini     # and later: --to local

The session stops, and its code (uncommitted changes too) and its Claude Code conversation move with it. A new session on the same thread picks up the conversation where it stopped. Coming home, the work lands in a worktree on the agent's branch, with the host's uncommitted changes still uncommitted. Claude Code sessions only, for now.

Not yet

• Moving a session straight from one host to another: bring it home first.
• Moving Codex sessions.
• Agents on two different hosts messaging each other directly: it works, through your laptop's sync.