AnyBot/docs/en/multi-device.md

Multi-device: brain, hands, screen (English summary)

Canonical document: docs/multi-device.md (Chinese).

One AnyBot in your account is the brain: it stores every bot, chat, memory and schedule, and does the thinking. Other machines are its hands (screen, input, files, browser), phones are web clients. Everything talks through your account server (relay); each machine opens an outbound long connection, so nothing needs open ports or a static IP.

Role	What it is	How to set
Brain	stores and thinks; keep it always on	logging into the account makes it the brain (default)
Screen	a machine with a window: shows and edits the brain's bots, and acts as hands	Settings › General › Phone & account › Brain › “use this as brain”
Hands	lets the brain's bots drive this machine	the “Add a computer” one-liner, or anybot setup
Phone	web app on the relay's URL	sign into the same account

Method A — server as relay + brain (recommended)

A Linux host (≥2 GB RAM) plus one of: a domain (A record, 80/443; HTTPS certificates issued automatically), a Tailscale HTTPS URL (https://host.tailnet.ts.net, no ports opened at all), or a LAN IP (self-issued, auto-renewed certificate — trust it once on each device; instructions in the Chinese doc).

curl -fsSL https://code.30cm.net/daniel.w/AnyBot/raw/branch/main/install.sh | sh -s -- server

It asks three questions (URL, account, password), installs Docker if needed, gets HTTPS, creates the account, starts the brain. Update later with cd ~/AnyBot && make server (“keep settings, update, restart”). Release archives (built by Gitea Actions on v* tags) avoid building on the server: download AnyBot-<ver>-server-<arch>.tar.gz, unpack, cd deploy/server && ./setup.sh.

Method B — a Mac as the brain (home, Tailscale)

1. make relay; install anybot-relay under ~/Library/Application Support/AnyBot/relay/ and load deploy/mac/com.anybot.relay.plist via launchctl (edit the URL inside first).
2. tailscale serve --bg 8780 → you get https://mac-mini.tailnet.ts.net.
3. AnyBot › Settings › General › Phone & account → enter that URL, create the account, sign in. This Mac is now the brain; other devices pair to it like Method A.

Pairing computers (hands)

“⋯ › Add a computer” on the phone (or Settings on the brain) shows a one-time pairing line like:

curl -fsSL https://your-domain/…/install.sh | sh -s -- hands https://your-domain 482913

The 6-digit code lives 10 minutes, works once, carries no password. The machine installs itself, registers a host token, starts anybot.service, and runs at boot (enable loginctl enable-linger $USER to keep it running when logged out).

When a device can't connect

• “Brain offline” → the brain machine is off/asleep, AnyBot isn't running there, or it lost the relay connection (each side keeps an outbound connection; a network change recovers by itself in seconds).
• A hands machine offline → check systemctl --user status anybot; re-run the pairing line to re-pair.
• A screen machine keeps a read-only brain copy (brain-copy.json) so recent chats stay readable while the brain is away.