# Computer view

> Watch and use a computer in your company beside any chat. See its live screen, move files to and from it, and copy and paste in both directions.

The Computer view is a window onto a computer in your company: your own as CEO, or one of your assistants'. You can watch its screen, take the mouse and keyboard, move files between it and your device, and copy and paste in both directions. You open it when you want to look, and close it when you do not. The assistant works either way.

> [!SOON]
> The live screen is not turned on everywhere yet. Where it is not, the view says so and why, and the Files tab still works.

## Open it

- **Beside a chat.** Press **Computer** at the top of any chat. A panel opens on the right, next to the conversation, so you can watch and chat at the same time. Press **Computer** again, or the close button on the panel, to put it away.
- **On the Computers page.** Choose the **Computer** icon in the row at the foot of the left menu, pick a computer at the top, and choose its **Computer** tab. It is the same view, with more room.
- **In the desktop app.** The panel beside a chat shows the computer the app runs, with the four tabs of [the Computer page](https://stellarfirm.ai/app/computer): Screen, Files, Terminal, and Tools. See [The four tabs](#the-four-tabs) below.

### Make room for it

- Drag the panel's left edge to make it wider or narrower. With the edge focused, the arrow keys move it too.
- The arrows button at the top gives the panel the whole width. Press it again to bring the chat back.
- On a narrow screen the panel covers the chat. Close it to go back to the conversation.
- Your browser remembers whether the panel was open, and how wide it was.

## Which computer you see

- **Your computer as CEO** is one computer. It is the same in every CEO chat, so what you leave on it is there in the next one.
- **Each assistant has a computer of its own**, never shared with another assistant or with yours.

In a chat on the web, the picker at the top of the panel lists your computer first, then the computer of each assistant in that chat. The panel opens on the assistant's computer when the chat has one assistant, and on yours when it has several or none. An assistant's computer appears once the assistant has used it: until its first piece of work, the panel says that its computer starts the first time it works on something. Your own computer is always there, and it stays live when you move from one of your chats to another.

## What the panel shows

| Part | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Picker | Choose whose computer you see |
| Status | Off, Starting, Setting up the desktop, Live, or Unavailable. **Working** shows while an assistant is busy in the chat |
| **Screen** tab | The computer's desktop, live |
| **Files** tab | The computer's files: browse, upload, download, rename, and delete |
| **Start the live view** | Starts the screen. While it is live, the button reads **Stop the live view** |
| Full screen | Gives the whole view your screen. Press it again to leave |
| **Open in Computers** | Beside a chat, opens the same computer on the Computers page |

## The live screen

The screen is off until you ask for it. Press **Start the live view**, and the desktop appears in a few seconds, sized to fit the panel.

It starts on its own in two cases:

- You left the panel open last time. Coming back starts the live view again.
- You send a message in a chat while the panel shows your own computer. The reply wakes that computer anyway, so the screen comes up with it.

### What is on the desktop

- A panel at the bottom with **Files**, **Terminal**, and **Browser**, plus the open windows and a clock.
- **Desktop** and **Downloads** folders. They are the same folders you see in the Files tab, so a file the browser downloads is ready for you to take.
- A browser that keeps its sign-ins when the computer restarts.

### Use it

- Click in the screen and type. While the screen has focus, your keys go to the computer. Click outside it to use the page again.
- **Keys** sends the keys your own device would keep for itself: Ctrl+Alt+Del, Esc, Tab, Super, Alt+Tab, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Shift+Insert.
- **Type text…** types a piece of text into the computer for you.
- **Display** sets the screen size: **Fit to the panel**, **Match the panel** (the desktop changes size to fit, where the computer supports it), or **Actual size** (scroll to see the rest). **Picture quality** goes from Faster to Sharper. **View only** stops your mouse and keys from reaching the computer.
- Drop files from your device onto the screen to put them on the computer's Desktop.

Your browser remembers your screen size, quality, and clipboard choices.

> [!TIP]
> The Tab key does not move into the screen from the rest of the page, so the screen never traps your keyboard. To send Tab, Esc, or other keys from the keyboard alone, use **Keys** or **Type text…**.

### When the connection drops

The view tries to reconnect three times, waiting a little longer each time. If it still cannot reach the computer, press **Reconnect**. If the computer refuses the connection, stop the live view and start it again.

### Stop it

Press **Stop the live view**, close the panel, leave the page, or pick another computer. The desktop stops, and the private link to it stops working. If the page goes away without closing it, the link stops working a few minutes later, and within an hour whatever happens.

## Set up the desktop the first time

Some computers do not have the desktop yet. The view says so, with a **Set up the desktop** button. Press it, and the status shows **Setting up the desktop**. The first time takes a minute or two. After that, the desktop starts quickly whenever you open it.

| What the view says | What to do |
| --- | --- |
| This computer does not have the desktop yet | Press **Set up the desktop** |
| The desktop could not be set up, with a list of what is missing | Try again later. Files still work |
| The desktop is not turned on, so the computer has a terminal and files but no screen | The live screen is not available in this place yet. Use the Files tab |
| The screen's address is published when the computer next starts | The computer was already running before its screen was turned on. Let it go to sleep (see [idle shutdown](/docs/workspaces/idle-shutdown)), then start the live view again |

## Files

The **Files** tab is a file manager for the computer you picked.

- **Places**: **Home**, **Desktop**, and **Downloads**. The path at the top shows where you are, and **Up one folder** goes back.
- **Upload** sends files from your device to the open folder. You can also drop files onto the list. A file whose name is already taken gets a number, such as `report (2).pdf`, so nothing is replaced.
- **New folder** makes a folder where you are. **Refresh** reloads the list.
- **Preview** opens text files up to 200 KB and pictures up to 5 MB in place.
- **Download** saves a file to your device. Large files come over in pieces, with a progress bar.
- **Rename** changes a name. It never replaces another file with the same name.
- **Delete** asks you first. Deleting a folder removes everything in it, and it cannot be undone.

Uploads and downloads show in **Transfers** at the bottom, one upload at a time, each with its progress. **Stop** ends one; **Clear finished** tidies the list. A file can be up to 512 MB. Leaving the view stops whatever is still moving.

Opening a folder wakes the computer for a moment. It goes back to sleep on its own when it is idle.

## Copy and paste

The clipboard works both ways.

- **From the computer to your device.** Copy something on the computer. It appears under **Clipboard**, in **Copied on the computer**; press **Copy to this device**.
- **From your device to the computer.** Press **Paste** in the screen's toolbar. Your browser may ask once whether StellarFirm may read your clipboard. The text goes onto the computer's clipboard and is pasted where the cursor is, in the terminal too.
- **Keep this device's clipboard in step.** Turn it on under **Clipboard**. It applies to the computer you are looking at only; every other computer stays off until you turn it on there too. While you work in the screen, text copied on the computer lands on your device by itself. What you copy on your device goes to the computer, ready to paste, the next time you click or type in the screen; just switching back to the window or tab sends nothing. While you are elsewhere on the page, in another window or tab, or in View only, nothing crosses on its own: what the computer copies waits under **Clipboard**. Both directions need your browser's permission.

If your browser does not share its clipboard, paste the text into **Text for the computer** under **Clipboard**, then press **Paste into the computer**, or **Put on its clipboard** to paste it yourself later. Once the desktop is set up, accents, other alphabets, and emoji come through whole. Very long text, over about a million characters, is refused.

## Private to you

- The screen starts only when you ask, and only the signed-in account owner can open it.
- The link to the screen is private, made fresh every time, and expires on its own.
- What you copy and paste is never written to the logs. The **Audit log** on the Computers page records only that the clipboard was used and how much text went across.

## The four tabs

The [Computer page](https://stellarfirm.ai/app/computer), and the panel in the desktop app, show a computer with four tabs.

| Tab | What it shows |
| --- | --- |
| Screen | The assistant's desktop, live |
| Files | The assistant's working folder, with previews, see [Files](/docs/workspaces/files) |
| Terminal | A live shell you can type in, see [Terminal](/docs/workspaces/terminal) |
| Tools | What is installed, missing, or optional, and an Install more form |

> [!NOTE]
> A screen shows the workspace, not your own computer. If your browser is on a different machine from the workspace, this view may offer Files and Terminal only.

### The state badge

At the top of this view, a badge tells you the workspace's state.

| State | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Not started | The workspace has not been created yet. Press **Start the computer**. |
| Setting up | Tools are being installed. The first start can take a few minutes. |
| Ready | The workspace is up and the tools are in place. |
| Asleep | The workspace is saved and wakes when you open it or the assistant has work. |
| Setup stopped | Something failed during setup. Press **Try setup again**. |

If the workspace is asleep, **Wake the computer** brings it back with its files intact. See [idle shutdown](/docs/workspaces/idle-shutdown).

## Prompts

```prompt title="Prepare something to watch"
Coder, I want to watch you work on [task]. Start with the browser step so I can open the Computer view and follow along.
```

```prompt title="Point me to the result"
Coder, when you finish [task], tell me the name and folder of the file to look at, so I can open it in the Computer view.
```

---

Source: https://stellarfirm.ai/docs/workspaces/computer-view