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ADE’s engine is the brain — an always-on, machine-owned process that holds your projects, lanes, agent chats, and Git state. The desktop app, ade code, the web client, and the iOS app are all clients of a brain. That split is what makes this possible: install the brain on a machine, connect it to your account, and drive it from anywhere. A Linux build server with 64 cores can be the machine that runs your agents while you review diffs from your phone.

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ade connect

ade connect is the one command that puts a machine on your account. It runs three idempotent steps and reports each one:
1

Account

Reuses a valid session, or signs you in. A browser-capable machine opens a loopback OAuth callback; SSH sessions and display-less hosts get a copy-paste device code instead.
2

Service

Installs and starts this platform’s login service if it is not already running — launchd on macOS, a systemd user service on Linux, a per-user startup entry on Windows. None of them need an elevated shell.
3

Machine

Waits for this machine’s row to reach your account directory. Once it lands, the machine is reachable from ADE desktop, the web client, and iOS.
Re-running ade connect on an already-connected machine changes nothing and just prints status, so it is safe in a provisioning script.
Output is JSON by default so scripts and agents can consume it. Add --text for a human-readable summary.
The brain is what publishes the machine and keeps it reachable — it re-registers every 30 seconds while running. If you skip the service step with --no-service, or stop the brain, the machine goes offline in the directory. The account directory marks a machine online only within a 90-second window of its last heartbeat.

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The brain on a Linux server

Linux runs the brain, not a desktop app — and that is the point. There is no ADE desktop app for Linux, and none is needed.
1

Install the brain

On any x64 or arm64 Linux box:
The script downloads a self-contained runtime binary, verifies it against the published checksums, and installs it under ~/.ade. There is no Node or npm prerequisite. Add ~/.ade/bin to your PATH — the installer prints the line but does not edit your shell profile.The systemd user service is registered only when a systemd user session is available. On a box without one, start the brain yourself and keep it running.
2

Connect it

Over SSH there is no browser, so use the device flow:
The CLI prints a verification URL and a short code. Complete it in a browser on any device.
3

Open a project on it

Register a repository that lives on that box:
4

Drive it from anywhere

The machine now appears in ADE desktop, at app.ade-app.dev, and in the iOS app. Create lanes, run agents, review diffs, and merge PRs from any of them — the work executes on the Linux box, against its filesystem and its own GitHub, Linear, and provider credentials.
You can also stay on the box and use the terminal UI directly:

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Non-interactive hosts

For CI and unattended agents, do the interactive sign-in once on a machine that has a browser, mint a durable credential, and hand it to the headless host:
Store the result in your secret manager and expose it as ADE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN to the ADE brain or runtime on the target machine. ADE never logs this value. The install scripts detect that no terminal is attached and skip their prompts, printing the follow-up commands instead. Set ADE_INSTALL_NO_PROMPT=1 (or pass -NoPrompt to install.ps1) to opt out explicitly.

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Undoing it

ADE accounts are optional. Local ade code, project, lane, and phone-pairing workflows keep working while signed out.

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Remote machines over SSH, instead

ade connect publishes a machine to your account so any client can reach it. If you would rather not involve an account at all, a desktop window can bind directly to a brain on another machine over SSH — ADE bootstraps the runtime on the far side on first connect.

Remote machines

Drive a repository on another box over SSH, with the desktop as the control plane.

ade CLI

The full typed control plane, including every ade connect flag.