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Shared sessions

A shared session lets you share one live conversation with other people by link. Each viewer watches it in their own Overdeck, in their own browser, while you keep working.

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What it is

You create a link for one conversation. A person who opens the link asks to join, and you decide who gets in. Once you admit someone, the conversation streams to their Overdeck directly from yours, peer to peer. The share service at overdeck.ai only introduces the two machines and checks who is allowed in. It never sees the conversation. In this release:
  • Only Claude Code conversations can be shared.
  • Viewers see the messages. Tool calls, thinking, the work log, cost and context usage are not shared.
  • Viewers are read-only. They cannot send prompts.

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Before you start

  • Both people run Overdeck on their own computer.
  • Both people are signed in to overdeck.ai with pan account login. The host needs it to create the link, and each viewer needs it so the host can see who is asking to join.
  • overdeck.ai accounts are invite-only. A viewer must be on the allowlist before they can sign in.

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Share a conversation

  1. Open the conversation in the dashboard.
  2. Open the ⋮ menu and choose Share this conversation, then Create link.
  3. Click Copy and send the link to the people you want to invite.
The share dialog lists the people waiting to join and the people in the room. For each person you can:
  • Admit them, so they start to see the conversation.
  • Admit as contributor, so they are marked as a contributor. Contributors get extra powers in a later release.
  • Kick them out. They can ask to join again.
  • Revoke them. They are blocked from this share and cannot ask again.
  • Un-revoke a blocked person, so they can ask to join again.
End share closes the room for everyone. The link stops working.

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Join a shared conversation

  1. Open the link in a browser on the computer that runs your Overdeck.
  2. The page looks for Overdeck on this computer, on port 3011, and opens it for you. Chrome may ask whether the page may reach apps on this device. Choose Allow.
  3. If Overdeck does not open, start it with pan up and reload the page. If your dashboard uses another port, open http://localhost:<port>/#/shared/<CODE> yourself, with the 8-letter code from the link. The page also always shows a manual Open it in Overdeck on this computer link.
  4. Click Join. The host sees your GitHub name and avatar before letting you in.
  5. Wait in the lobby until the host admits you.
Click Leave at any time to leave the shared conversation.

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Roles

  • Host: the person who shared the conversation. The conversation runs on the host’s machine, and the host admits, kicks and revokes people.
  • Controller: the person who drives the conversation. In this release this is always the host.
  • Viewer: a person the host admitted. Viewers watch the conversation live and are read-only.
  • Contributor: a viewer the host marked as a contributor. In this release a contributor sees the same thing as any other viewer.
Contributor prompts and handing control to another person come in a later release.

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What viewers see

  • Join a shared conversation: the confirmation before you join.
  • Waiting for the host to let you in: you are in the lobby. You see no part of the conversation until the host admits you.
  • The conversation itself, with the conversation’s title, the host and the number of people watching in the header. New messages appear as the host’s agent writes them.
  • Host disconnected — reconnecting…: the host’s machine lost its connection to the share service. You keep the messages you already have.
  • Connection to the host was lost.: the direct connection to the host dropped. Click Reconnect to get the conversation again.
  • Removed by host: the host kicked you, and you can ask to join again, or the host revoked you, and you cannot.
  • This share has ended.: the host ended the share.
  • This share is full.: the room has no space left.
  • This is your own share.: you opened a link to a conversation you are sharing.
  • This share is open in another tab or on another device.: you joined the same share somewhere else. Only one place at a time can watch.
  • Sign in to join: run pan account login first.

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Limits

  • A room holds at most 50 people, of whom at most 20 can wait in the lobby at once.
  • The link works as long as the share exists.
  • If the host’s machine stays away from the share service for more than 5 minutes, the room ends.