Choose your surfaces

Glueprint has four surfaces. The portal is required for everyone (it’s how you manage your account); the others are how you work day to day. This page is a quick guide to which to add when.

Just trying it out

Sign up on the portal, generate an activation key, then install the desktop app and activate. Start a session. Stop when you’re done.

You don’t need the cloud relay or the mobile app to get value from a single machine — once activated, the desktop runs locally.

Daily coding on one machine

The desktop app is where most users spend their day. Sessions, assistants, teams, and routines all run locally. Memory persists across launches. Git, terminals, and the built-in editor work without an internet connection.

If you want to keep an eye on sessions from a browser, the portal shows everything as soon as the cloud relay is enabled under Settings > Cloud.

Daily coding across multiple machines

Install the desktop app on each machine. Generate one activation key per machine on the portal, and activate each desktop. The portal shows every host in one view, and any signed-in surface (portal, mobile) can switch between them.

Sessions stay on the host where they were started — they don’t migrate. But the transcripts are visible from any surface you’ve signed in to.

Adding the mobile app

The mobile app is for everyone, not just oversight. It gives you almost the same access as the portal: every running session, live transcripts, approvals, assistant chat, tasks, routines, the file browser, and a terminal attached to a session.

Two things mobile deliberately leaves out:

• The built-in code editor for authoring — long persona edits and complex configuration are easier on desktop or portal.
• The visual workflow canvas and the assistant workbench — both desktop/portal only today.

If you have the mobile app installed, you’ve covered the day-to-day. Most users find they need desktop or portal only for heavier authoring work.

Running sessions on a server

Install the CLI daemon on the server. Activate it with a key from the portal. The daemon runs as a background service; it has no graphical interface. You drive it from the portal, the mobile app, or another desktop machine.

Common patterns:

• Long-running assistant routines that wake every hour.
• A 24/7 “infrastructure” assistant doing checks and reports.
• Sessions that need to outlive your laptop closing the lid.

See CLI Daemon for the full setup.

Just admin work

If you’re the administrator on a Team or Enterprise plan and your job is purely user/plan/SSO/audit management, the portal is enough — those admin surfaces live there. You’ll still want the desktop app installed somewhere if you also write code.

Quick reference table

If you…	Use…
Want the most capable experience	Portal + desktop
Need to monitor and act on the go	Portal + desktop + mobile
Have multiple machines	Portal + desktop on each
Want sessions running 24/7	Portal + CLI daemon on a server + mobile (or desktop) for oversight
Are an organization admin only	Portal

Next step

You’re ready. Head to Sessions > Start a session for the day-to-day reference, or AI Assistants to set up a persistent teammate.