Fleet: a Team-Hub on a VPS

Your laptop doesn’t have to be the only machine running askTheodor — a headless copy on a server keeps your workforce producing around the clock.

What you’ll learn

• The two kinds of instance: Command Center vs Team-Hub.
• How to start a hub headless and pair it to your desktop.
• Why a hub can run flat-out yet never spend money or send anything.

1. The two kinds of instance

• Command Center — your normal desktop app, with every screen. It’s the cockpit you steer from, and the only place money is spent and outreach is sent.
• Team-Hub — the same binary started with asktheodor --runner, with no window, usually on a rented VPS. Nobody sits at it; it runs your workhorse workers 24/7. This is the paid “remote” add-on.

2. Start it headless

On the server, launch the runner once by hand and tell it where to keep its data:

asktheodor --runner --data-dir /srv/asktheodor

The first run creates the database, applies migrations, and downloads the built-in embedder model. To survive reboots, install it as a systemd service so it auto-starts and restarts on failure.

3. Pair it into your Fleet

A runner is just another peer. From your Command Center, open Fleet (or Settings → Peers), add the VPS by its host/tunnel URL, complete the pairing handshake, and grant a scope — sync, delegate, or full. Once paired, the hub appears live, its workspace mirrors via sync, and it accepts delegated work.

A hub never touches money and never sends

A Team-Hub has no payment tools in any allowlist, and its channels are draft-only. A worker told to “send this email” prepares the draft and nothing more — running headless, its approval gate auto-denies anything that would leave the machine. The actual send happens later, from a Command Center.

Keep the cockpit, scale the floor

Put your Reviewers, Critics, and Judges on the Command Center; let Researchers, Developers, and Writers grind on the hub. The split is the safety model — every consequential action funnels back through a human.

Recap

A Team-Hub is askTheodor headless on a server, paired to your Command Center, syncing and producing 24/7 — but structurally unable to spend or send. Next, we point a worker the other way: outward, at your visitors.

➡️ Next: Kiosks: a public-facing agent