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A remote is Hoista running in your own hosting account, with its own address and a volume for its data. It stays reachable when your computer is off. Your provider bills you for it directly.
A remote runs in your own Railway or Fly.io account. Your computer reaches it with a key you approved with your passkey, and chat apps through /mcp with OAuth. The gateway keeps projects and approvals; a separate credential keeper holds the provider tokens in a sealed file and adds them to provider requests.A remote runs in your own Railway or Fly.io account. Your computer reaches it with a key you approved with your passkey, and chat apps through /mcp with OAuth. The gateway keeps projects and approvals; a separate credential keeper holds the provider tokens in a sealed file and adds them to provider requests.

A remote keeps working while your computer is off. The provider tokens stay with a separate keeper.

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Set one up

Hoista can create a remote in a Railway or Fly.io account you’ve connected in Accounts.
Hoista doesn’t publish a server image yet, so a remote on Railway or Fly.io has to build from a copy of Hoista’s repository on GitHub. Until an image is published, use the CLI with --repo OWNER/NAME, as shown below. Set one up for me in Desktop needs the published image.
  1. Open Settings → Instances → Add a remote.
  2. Under Don’t have one yet?, choose Set one up for me.
  3. Pick the account in Run it in, then confirm it’s you.
  4. When it’s ready, choose Claim it and make a passkey on its page.
From the CLI:
It builds the remote, adds it to your list of remotes, prints the claim code and opens its page so you can sign this computer in. --repo is the GitHub repository to build from, such as your fork of Hoista; add --branch to pick a branch. Once Hoista publishes a server image, --repo becomes optional: without it, the remote runs that image, pinned by its digest. If setup can’t seal the HOISTA_SEALED_KEY variable, it prints the steps to do it yourself. To run a remote with Docker instead, choose Run one yourself, or run this inside a copy of Hoista’s repository:
Without --url it answers on http://localhost:8787. --folder points at the repository copy if you’re not in it. Passkeys need HTTPS, so put a reverse proxy in front of a server before you sign in. For a Mac mini, a home server or a VPS, see Self-host Hoista.

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Sign this computer in

In Settings → Instances → Add a remote, enter the remote’s Address and choose Sign in. Its page opens in your browser. The first time, enter the claim code and make a passkey. After that, sign in with your passkey and choose Allow. From the CLI:
hoist remote add names the remote and signs in straight away; add --no-login to sign in later. hoist remote login opens the remote’s page in your browser: sign in with your passkey and choose Allow. On a computer without a browser, add --no-browser and type the code it shows on the remote’s page. hoist remote lists your remotes, marks the one in use and shows whether this computer is signed in. Add a second passkey on another device from the remote’s page, so losing one device doesn’t lock you out.

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Switch between instances

Choose Switch next to an instance in Settings → Instances, or use the menu at the bottom left. In the CLI, hoist remote use switches every command after it, and --remote NAME (or HOISTA_REMOTE) changes one command:
hoist remote rename changes a remote’s name in your list.

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Push your projects to an empty remote

After you sign in to a remote with no projects or accounts, Hoista offers to push this computer’s projects and accounts to it. Choose Not now to skip. While the remote is empty, its ⋮ menu keeps the option. From the CLI, run hoist remote push office. The push is encrypted with a one-time key, and each project keeps its mode. Nothing on this computer is deleted. Agents on this computer are paused afterwards. Connect them to the remote’s /mcp address instead; hoist mcp config prints it while the remote is in use. A push happens once, into an empty remote. Hoista never merges projects.

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Remove a remote

In the remote’s ⋮ menu, choose Remove from this Mac, or run hoist remote remove office. This computer forgets the remote and its key, and the remote keeps running. To sign out but keep it in the list, run hoist remote logout office. To stop the key working, also remove this computer on the remote’s devices page. To shut the remote down, delete it in your Railway or Fly.io account.

Remote runtime

How a remote keeps your tokens.

Self-host Hoista

Run it on a Mac mini or a server.

Backups and recovery

Back up Hoista and settle unclear changes.