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Multiplayer hosting

War Room is local-first. You don't need any of this if you're using it solo. Multiplayer means one teammate runs the sync server and everyone else connects to it.

Settings -> Sync gives you four ways to host. Pick one. Click "Host this workspace from this machine." Copy the invite. Paste it in Slack. Done.

Which mode do I pick?

Mode When URL stays the same? Cost Account
Share over the internet (instant) Trying it out, demo, daily use if you don't mind re-sharing on restart No, changes every restart Free None
Share over the internet (permanent URL) Long-running team setup Yes About $10/year for a domain Free Cloudflare account
Share over private network You want zero exposure to the public internet Yes (per device) Free up to 3 teammates including you Tailscale account
Connect to my own server You already deployed tools/reference-sync-server/ on a VPS Yes Whatever your VPS costs Whatever your VPS provider needs

"Share over the internet (instant)" - Cloudflare Quick Tunnel

The fastest way in. On first activation, War Room downloads the cloudflared binary (~50 MB) from Cloudflare's official releases, verifies the SHA256, and caches it. Subsequent runs reuse the cache.

Then it runs cloudflared tunnel --url http://127.0.0.1:<port> and parses the public https://*.trycloudflare.com URL out of the output. That URL goes into the invite block, you copy it, you paste it, your teammates connect.

The URL changes on every restart. This is the trade Quick Tunnel makes for not needing a Cloudflare account or domain. War Room detects when the new URL is different from the one you last copied and shows a banner: "Your tunnel URL changed. The old invite no longer works. [Copy new invite]" - click that, paste in Slack again.

"Share over the internet (permanent URL)" - Cloudflare Named Tunnel

Same plumbing but stable. Steps:

  1. Sign up for a free Cloudflare account.
  2. Buy a domain (about $10/year via any registrar; Cloudflare also sells them at-cost).
  3. Add the domain to Cloudflare's DNS.
  4. In the Cloudflare Zero Trust dashboard, create a tunnel. Cloudflare gives you a tunnel token.
  5. In the tunnel's public hostname config, point a subdomain (like war-room.your-domain.com) at http://localhost:<port> where <port> is the port shown in War Room's hosting status panel.
  6. Paste the tunnel token + the subdomain URL into War Room's Settings -> Sync -> "Cloudflare Named Tunnel config".
  7. Click Host.

URL stays the same across restarts and reboots.

"Share over private network" - Tailscale

If you don't want anything publicly reachable. Steps:

  1. Install Tailscale from tailscale.com on every machine that needs to participate (the host AND each teammate).
  2. Sign in to the same tailnet on every machine.
  3. In War Room, pick the Tailscale mode and click Host.
  4. War Room detects your Tailscale IP and shows ws://100.x.y.z:<port>/ as the URL. Share that with teammates.

Free for up to 3 teammates including you. Above that, you pay Tailscale's subscription. The notice is always visible while Tailscale is the selected mode.

"Connect to my own server" - Manual VPS

The v0.15.0 path. You deployed tools/reference-sync-server/ on a VPS yourself and want War Room to point at it. Paste the URL, paste your token, click Save.

Smart-paste on the join side

Teammates don't have to copy/paste three fields. The Settings -> Sync Connect form's URL field has smart-paste: paste the whole invite block into it and all three fields auto-fill. Works from Slack, Discord, email, even with quote-marker > prefixes.

Single-host discipline

Only one teammate hosts at a time per workspace. The app can't physically prevent two of you from both clicking Host - what it can do is show a persistent indicator in the top-left of every screen: "Hosting ". If you see that on your screen, you're the source of truth. If two teammates see it, you've split-brained the workspace - one of you should Stop Hosting.

Rotating the token

Settings -> Sync -> Hosting -> Rotate token.

This invalidates the current invite. A new token is generated, the invite block updates, and the tunnel restarts. You re-share the new invite. Teammates see a "connection rejected" message until they re-paste the new invite block.

Auto-resume

If hosting was on when you quit War Room, it comes back up on next launch automatically. The chrome indicator shows. If the URL is different from the one you last copied (common with Quick Tunnel), the URL-changed banner shows in Settings.

To stop hosting permanently, click Stop Hosting in Settings -> Sync.

What still doesn't sync

Per v0.15.0 limits, also covered in SYNC.md:

  • Chat messages stay per-user.
  • Uploaded file bytes stay on the machine that uploaded them. URLs travel with their row; content does not.

These are explicit follow-up work, not bugs.

Windows SmartScreen

First time cloudflared.exe spawns on Windows, you may see a SmartScreen prompt about a downloaded executable. The binary is Cloudflare's official signed release; War Room verifies the SHA256 before running it. Click "More info" then "Run anyway" once and SmartScreen remembers.