How to share your localhost

Before you start

Two things have to be true on the computer you want to share from:

• Node.js 18 or newer is installed. Check with: node --version
• Your project is already running locally — you can open it at http://localhost:3000 (or whatever port it uses) in a browser on that machine.

Where do I type these commands?

Both commands below go in a terminal on the computer running your project — not on this website, and not on your phone.

On Windows: press the Start button, type "PowerShell", and open it. On macOS: press Cmd+Space, type "Terminal", and open it. On Linux you already know.

If your editor has a built-in terminal (VS Code: Ctrl+` or View → Terminal), that works too and is usually easiest — it opens in your project folder already.

Step 1 — Sign in from that computer

Do this first. Signing in on this website signs in your browser, not your computer, and the two are separate. Run this once per machine and it remembers you afterwards:

npx busymote login

Step 2 — Share the port

Start your project the way you normally do (npm run dev, for example). Note the port number it prints — usually 3000 for Next.js, 5173 for Vite. Then, in a second terminal, point Busymote at that port:

• Change 3000 to your port if it differs.
• Leave this running. It is the tunnel — close it and the link stops working until you run it again.

npx busymote 3000

What you get

A link like https://beam.busymote.xyz appears in your terminal and on your dashboard. It belongs to that port and does not change: restart your computer, restart the command, and the same link still works. Send it to a client once.

Click the link on your dashboard to rename it — beam, acme-demo, whatever you like, as long as nobody has taken it.

Control it from your phone

Sign in to this site on any device to see everything you are sharing. You can copy the link, show a QR code, share another port, or stop a tunnel — the computer at home does what you tap, as long as the busymote command is still running there.

When you are done

Press Ctrl+C in the terminal, or hit Stop on the dashboard. The link stays reserved for you and starts working again the next time you share that port.

If something goes wrong

• "Not logged in. Run: busymote login" — you skipped step 1, or you are on a different computer than the one you signed in from.
• "Session expired" — run npx busymote login again. Sessions do not last forever.
• The link shows "Nothing is being shared here right now" — the busymote command is not running on your computer, or it lost its connection. Start it again.
• The link opens but the page is broken or blank — Busymote is showing exactly what your local server returns. Open http://localhost:3000 on that machine and check it works there first.
• cloudflared not found (macOS) — install it with: brew install cloudflared
• Anything else: use the feedback box on your dashboard. It reaches us with your account attached, so we can actually look.

One thing to keep in mind

While a tunnel is live, anyone with the link can reach that port on your computer. There is no password on it. Share the link with people you mean to, and stop the tunnel when you are finished.