---
title: Devices
description: Run your agents on machines you already own — this Mac, the Mac mini on the desk, a VPS. Termio copies one binary there over SSH, sets up the agents, and the sessions keep running whether or not you’re attached.
---
Termio runs your agents on machines you already own: this Mac, the Mac mini on
the same desk, a VPS you pay for. There is no Termio cloud to provision from and
nothing to sign into — a machine is a machine Termio can `ssh` to.
Everything in the app files under one hierarchy:
```
Device a machine you can reach, this Mac included
└ Workspace a named scope in the sidebar
└ Project a checkout on that machine
└ Session one real terminal
```
Each level belongs to exactly one level above it. That is what makes the machine
question answerable once, at the top, instead of being asked again for every
project and every pane. The level that answers it is the
[workspace](/docs/workspaces).
## Adding a machine
This Mac is a device like any other, and it’s the one you already have. Until
you add a second, the level stays out of your way — `New Terminal` and `Open
Project…` are plain verbs, because there is only one place they could mean.
Termio reads `~/.ssh/config` and never rewrites it behind your back. Anything
you can already `ssh` to is a machine Termio can reach:
- **File ▸ Connect to…** lists the aliases in your config that Termio hasn’t
worked on yet. Connecting opens a terminal there.
- **Add Host…** appends a `Host` block for a box that isn’t in your config yet.
Lead with the address; the name is what you’ll type after `ssh`. A key is the
credential that works everywhere, including for the sessions running on the
box. A password is saved to your Keychain, never to `ssh` config, and read
only when `ssh` asks for it.
## Setting up a machine
Open **Settings ▸ Devices**, pick the machine, and press **Set Up**. Termio
copies one binary — `termiod`, the session host — into `~/.local/bin` over SSH.
No root, no package manager, nothing to add to your shell profile. It then looks
for the agent CLIs installed there and writes Termio’s hooks, its config block,
and its agent skill for each one, so an agent on a VPS reports **working**,
**needs you**, and **done** exactly the way a local one does.
The same button is also the update. It works from any state — nothing installed,
an older build, a build the running daemon hasn’t picked up yet — and it puts
the old binary back if the new one doesn’t answer. A machine’s pane shows the
version it runs.
An update that would interrupt work in progress says so and names the session,
with **Update Anyway** beside it. Your own idle terminals never block an update;
a command still running or an agent mid-task does.
Under **Installed by Termio**, the daemon, the hooks, and the skill each get
their own **Reinstall** row. A reinstall replaces the hooks Termio put there and
leaves any you wrote yourself alone.
Termio never provisions a machine, never runs a control plane, and never
routes your traffic. It shells out to the system `ssh`, with your
`~/.ssh/config` and your keychain as the only authorities. Your code stays on
hardware you control — which is the only trust story that survives giving an
agent a shell on a private repo.
## Sessions live on the machine
Every session runs inside `termiod` on the machine that owns it — including the
sessions on this Mac, which run in the local daemon. The app is a viewer that
attaches and detaches.
That’s why closing the window leaves everything running, and why a remote
session isn’t tied to the SSH connection that opened it: dropping the link
detaches you, it doesn’t kill the agent. Reattaching restores the screen.
Only **Close Session** (`⌘W`) ends a session on purpose. Quitting Termio detaches
instead, and the next launch reattaches.
## What reaches across
Once a machine is set up, the panes that read a project read it on the machine
the project is on:
- **Files** — browse the checkout, open a file, and save it back to the machine
it was read from.
- **Search** — search a checkout on the machine, follow its `cd`, and open what
the search found.
- **Changes, Compare, History** — the git pane reads that machine’s repository,
and stays as read-only there as it is here.
- **Agents** — the same manifests, hooks, and skill, installed on the box.
**Settings ▸ Agents** carries a device scope, so where an agent’s CLI lives is
answered per machine.
- **Paste an image** into an agent running on the machine and Termio carries the
file across.
The sidebar also has an **Also Running** section: what the machine itself says
is running, including sessions started outside Termio — `ssh` in, `termiod`
sees it, and you can open it here.
The scope that decides which machine a project opens on.
The hooks that make status honest, on this Mac and on every machine.
Pair the phone with a machine and reach its sessions from anywhere.