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Starting sessions from the web

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Start agent sessions from the browser on a machine you control, using the live daemon. You need the live CLI installed and signed in on that machine, tmux installed, and the agent CLIs installed and signed in there too. Sessions run on your machine, not on the server.

1. Run the daemon#

live daemon --dir ~/code/api --dir ~/code/web

You should see:

● live daemon ready as alice-mbp — start sessions from https://liveshortly.com

Leave it running. The machine now shows up in New session on the site. live hosts lists your machines that are running the daemon.

Run the daemon as the operating-system user whose agent credentials and projects it should use. A service manager (launchd on macOS, systemd on Linux) can keep it running. --name changes the name shown on the site; without it the hostname is used.

2. Start a session from the browser#

  1. Choose New session on the site.
  2. Pick the machine, the agent and the directory. For Ollama, pick a model that is already pulled on that machine.
  3. Leave Skip permission prompts off unless you trust the agent in that directory (see below).
  4. Start it. The session page opens and the daemon prints:
● live started claude in /Users/alice/code/api → https://liveshortly.com/session/3f2a9c1e-…
        attach locally: tmux -L liveshortly attach -t live-3f2a9c1e

Send your first instruction from the message box on the session page.

Allowed directories#

Sessions can only start in the directories you passed with --dir. Without --dir, only the directory you started the daemon in is allowed. Repeat --dir to offer more than one. The server sends only an agent name and one of these directories; your machine builds the command.

Which agents are offered#

The daemon offers every agent it finds on its PATH from this list: claude, codex, gemini, agy, antigravity, ollama, aider, cursor-agent, copilot, opencode, crush, goose, amp, qwen, pi, hermes. To offer anything else, or an agent installed under another name or path, list it in ~/.liveshortly/agents.json:

[
  { "name": "my-agent", "command": "/opt/my-agent/bin/agent", "args": ["--interactive"] },
  { "name": "goose", "command": "goose", "args": ["acp"], "acp": true },
  { "name": "aider", "command": "aider", "type_comments": true }
]
FieldMeaning
nameThe name shown in the picker. Letters, digits, - and _. It can't reuse a built-in name (claude, codex, gemini, agy, antigravity, ollama).
commandThe executable. Defaults to name.
argsFixed arguments, always passed.
type_commentsType viewer messages into the agent as one line. Off by default, because the Enter that submits the line can also answer a yes/no prompt in the agent.
acpRun the agent over the Agent Client Protocol. command and args must start its ACP mode. The session gets structured capture and web approvals.

A file that exists but does not parse stops the daemon from starting. At most 64 entries. Use --agents-file <path> to read another file.

Skip permission prompts#

Off by default: you approve each tool call from the session page, as in Approvals. Turning it on runs the agent without asking, with its own "don't ask" flag:

AgentWith skip on
Claude Code--dangerously-skip-permissions
Gemini CLI--yolo
Codex--ask-for-approval never. Codex keeps its sandbox: anything outside it fails instead of asking.
Antigravity, ACP agentslive's approvals are off; no extra flag is passed.
Other terminal agentsNo flag is passed.

Terminal agents such as aider or cursor-agent can't be approved from the web. They use their own terminal prompts, which nobody can answer in a web-started session. The picker says so. Turn Skip permission prompts on for them, or start them from your terminal instead.

Take over a web-started session#

Each web-started session runs in tmux on your machine. To continue it in your terminal:

tmux -L liveshortly attach -t live-<first 8 characters of the session id>

ACP sessions have no terminal; use the session page.

Clean-up#

  • Restarting the daemon does not stop running sessions.
  • Every 5 minutes, and when it starts, the daemon looks for web-started sessions whose capture process has died (reboot, crash, kill -9) and ends them on the server: ● live archived orphaned session …. The tmux pane is left running so you can still attach to it.
  • A machine leaves the New session list about 90 seconds after its daemon stops.
  • Ending the session from the page (or live stop <id>) stops capture. Close the agent itself in its tmux pane if it is still open.

Security model#

  • Only your account can start sessions on your machine.
  • The browser can't run arbitrary commands: it can only choose an agent the daemon offered and a directory you allowed.
  • Sessions run as the daemon's user, with that user's file access. The directory list limits where sessions start; it is not a sandbox. Use a dedicated user or container if that matters to you.
  • Web-started sessions are normal sessions: same capture, same permission control, same sharing.

If it doesn't work#

  • live: tmux is required for `live daemon` : install tmux (brew install tmux or sudo apt install tmux).
  • The machine is missing from New session. The daemon must be running and signed in to the same server. Check live whoami and live hosts.
  • spawn refused: agent "x" is not offered by this machine: the agent is not on the daemon's PATH. Install it, or add it to agents.json, then restart the daemon.
  • spawn refused: directory "…" is not registered on this machine: restart the daemon with that --dir.
  • spawn refused: model "…" is not pulled on this machine: run ollama pull <model> on that machine.
  • live: register failed (…) — retrying in …: the daemon can't reach the server. It keeps retrying.
  • The agent exits straight away. It is not signed in on that machine, or it is waiting for a prompt nobody can answer. Attach with tmux to see why.

Related#