A vendor bot that uses your browser sign-in (Grok, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot) works by driving the vendor’s website in a browser. By default that browser lives on the computer you use, so when your Mac sleeps or is closed, those bots go quiet. Give the account a host on your Allternit cloud computer and its browser runs there instead, with its own saved sign-in. Your cloud computer sleeps when idle and wakes by itself when a message arrives. The first message after a long quiet spell can take about 20 seconds while it wakes; Allternit retries for you.

​
What you need

  • An Allternit plan with a cloud computer, paired to your account. It shows up as a runtime in Settings → Computers.
  • A vendor account connected with Browser sign-in (see Vendor bots). API-key accounts do not use a browser and cannot move.

​
Move an account to the cloud computer

Each account has one host: this_device (the computer running Allternit, today’s behaviour) or cloud_computer. Moving the host never copies your sign-in. A session is tied to the machine that made it, and Allternit does not copy cookies between machines. After a move the account shows Needs sign-in and its bots wait until you sign in on the new host.
  1. Choose the cloud computer as the account’s host (POST /api/v1/gateway/provider-accounts/:id/host, below).
  2. Start the sign-in. Allternit opens the vendor’s login page in the cloud computer’s browser and returns its viewer.
  3. In the viewer, sign in to the vendor yourself, including any code or bot check. Allternit never sees your password and never completes a check for you.
  4. Check the session. When the vendor reports it ready, the account becomes Connected and its bots resume.
Moving the account back to this device works the same way: you sign in again on that computer. When you move off a cloud computer, Allternit signs the account out there and deletes that browser profile, so no old session is left behind. If the cloud computer can’t be reached at that moment, the move still happens and the response says the old sign-out was skipped.

​
While it runs

  • Status: GET /api/v1/gateway/provider-accounts/:id includes a host block with kind, runtimeId, online, lastSeen, needsSignIn and wakeable. online: false with wakeable: true means the computer is asleep and will wake on the next message.
  • Needs sign-in: if the vendor signs you out, the account moves to Expired and its bots show Needs sign-in. Sign in again from step 2.
  • A vendor check or restriction (a bot check, a limited account) is never worked around. The account stays blocked until you resolve it in the viewer.
  • Vendor terms still apply. Running a subscription in a browser can conflict with a vendor’s terms, exactly as it can on your own computer. See the disclosure in Vendor bots.

​
For developers

Everything lives in cmd/allternit-api/src/gateway_vendor_host.rs (runtime side, migration V221__vendor_account_host.sql). The cloud API needs no change: it already relays to a runtime and wakes a sleeping cloud computer.

​
Data

provider_account_bindings gains host_kind (this_device | cloud_computer), host_runtime_id, host_state (ready | needs_sign_in | signing_in), host_remote_account_id, host_last_seen_at, host_changed_at. They surface camelCase on every account (hostKind, hostRuntimeId, hostState, …).

​
Dispatch

HostRoutedTransport wraps the runner’s AaiTransport (outside the channel-lane and subscription transports). For a binding whose account has host_kind = cloud_computer it relays the call to the cloud computer’s gateway:
The cloud relay wakes a sleeping computer first. Answers map to the runner’s errors: 503 runtime_warming → retryable GATEWAY_UNAVAILABLE with retryAfterMs, 503 runtime_offline → retryable GATEWAY_OFFLINE. If host_state is not ready the call fails with AUTH_REQUIRED and never reaches (or wakes) the computer. Every other account passes straight through, and a runtime started with ALLTERNIT_PROVISIONED=1 (the cloud computer itself) always runs locally. The cloud call uses the caller’s own bearer when there is one, else ALLTERNIT_CLOUD_API_TOKEN; the base URL is ALLTERNIT_CLOUD_API_URL (default https://api.allternit.com).

​
Routes (under /api/v1/gateway)

Moving host sets host_state = needs_sign_in, drops a CONNECTED/DEGRADED account to EXPIRED (which cascades dependent bots to NEEDS_AUTH) and writes a host.moved row to connection_audit. A move off a cloud computer deletes that gateway account (its browser profiles) best-effort. The gateway provider id sent for an account is its vendor mapped by gateway_provider (openai→chatgpt, anthropic→claude, xai→grok, google, microsoft).

​
Not done yet

  • Nothing sweeps cloud-hosted accounts in the background: a periodic check would wake the computer and defeat its sleep. Checks run when you ask (or after a sign-in).
  • Settings UI for choosing the host and showing the viewer ships separately in allternit-ai.