docs · seamside

Handbook

Handbook

Seamside Handbook

A detailed guide to using Seamside.

Getting started

Welcome to Seamside

Seamside is a local-first creative workspace for making things together. Everything you create lives on your device first, then syncs directly with the people you invite. There is no central server, no cloud account, no signup form — pick a name, and you're ready to build.

Your first space

A space is a shared canvas where you and your collaborators gather. Think of it like a room: you open it, you fill it with things you care about, and anyone you invite walks into the same room in real time.

If you've just finished setup, your first space is already waiting for you — with a document and a whiteboard placed inside so there's something to touch right away. To make another:

From the home view, click new space .

Give it a title — something like "Sketches" or "Weekly planning" works well.

Pick an accent color from the swatches, or sample your own from the color picker below them.

Confirm and the space opens — you are inside it.

Drop in your first frame

A frame is a little app that lives inside a space. Notes, a whiteboard, a chat box, a game, a sketchpad — frames are how you actually get things done in Seamside.

Press Cmd+K (or Ctrl+K ) to summon Conjure Studio — Seamside's frame picker.

You can also drag a rectangle anywhere on the space's canvas to mark where the frame should go, and Conjure will pop open right there.

Browse the bundled frames, pick one that looks useful, and it drops into your space. Click it and start playing.

That's it for the basics

You now have a space with a frame in it. Everything else in this manual builds on those two ideas: spaces hold your work, and frames are what you work with. From here, you can invite friends, link your other devices, share data between frames, and even build new frames of your own. Welcome aboard — let's keep going.

People: add, chat, collaborate

Add someone to your people

In Seamside, the people you connect with show up under People . Adding someone is a two-step handshake — both sides have to accept, so nobody ends up in your list without agreeing to it.

Open the People tab in the nav at the bottom of the screen.

Click the + in the column header to start an invite. Seamside gives you a link.

Send that link however suits you — chat, email, a paper note in a shared book.

When they open the link, they're asked if they want to connect. Once they accept, they appear in your people list and you appear in theirs.

If the other person is on the same local network, they may even show up under nearby automatically — both of you can tap each other's row to connect, no link needed.

Chat one-on-one

Click any person in your people list to open their detail and chat. Messages sync when both of you are online. If someone is offline, your message waits patiently and delivers the next time you are both connected.

Start a voice or video call

From a person's detail view, hit the call action. If they're online they'll see an incoming call and can pick up. Calls run directly between your devices — no third party is routing your audio or video.

Invite someone into a space

Once you're connected, you can pull them into a space:

Open the space you want to share and head into its settings.

Invite a person from your people list.

Pick their role — viewer , collaborator , or admin .

They get an invitation under their Spaces tab. Once they accept, the space lights up for both of you and you can work in it together.

Good to know

Presence dots tell you who's currently online — filled means active, hollow means offline. No guesswork, no fading dots.

You can give a contact a petname — a private nickname only you see — without changing the name they picked for themselves.

Removing a contact only affects your side. They still have their copy of any shared spaces unless you remove them from those spaces too.

Working in spaces

Spaces are shared rooms

A space is the main place where work happens in Seamside. When you're inside a space, everyone else who's also there sees the same contents, and any changes flow live between you. Each space is its own canvas — drop in as many or as few frames as you like, arrange them how you want, and let the space grow with the project.

Moving around

You can pan the canvas by scrolling, zoom with Cmd/Ctrl+= and Cmd/Ctrl+- (or pinch), and zoom out to hyperspace view with Shift+Escape to see everything at once. Your viewport is yours — sliding around on your screen doesn't yank anyone else's view — but adding, removing, or repositioning a frame is shared with everyone in the space. The full list of moves lives in the keyboard shortcuts chapter.

The lock

Each space has a lock in its header. Locked keeps every frame pinned exactly where it is — nothing gets nudged by a stray drag. Unlocked lets you move and resize freely. Editors start unlocked; viewers are always locked. When a space is...