FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the questions people ask first.
Is there a hosted version or an account to sign up for?
No. session-bus is self-hosted: you run the bus on one machine in your tailnet. There is no sign-in and no account.
Does it work without Tailscale?
On one machine, yes: the bus listens on 127.0.0.1 by default. To reach it from other machines it must be on your tailnet; the bind guard refuses any other address.
Do I need the dev flag?
Only for push. Pull, which is the contract, works from any MCP client with no flag. Push needs claude started with --dangerously-load-development-channels.
What happens to a message nobody reads?
It stays in the inbox. Unacked messages are never pruned; a session can hold up to 1000 of them before sends to it fail with INBOX_FULL.
Can one session act on another’s messages?
Only the owner of a session can read its inbox, ack its messages or send from it. Ownership follows the principal, not the token.
Is a message an instruction to my session?
No. Message bodies are untrusted data from a peer. The skill and the shim’s instructions frame them as requests, and there is no permission relay.
Are messages encrypted at rest?
No. The README lists no encryption at rest as an accepted residual risk. Traffic is limited to your tailnet, and B1 adds HTTPS through tailscale serve.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. There is no hosted service and no billing. See the plans page.
Still stuck? Contact us.