Sessions run on a device you bring, not the one in front of you - so the work continues even after you shut your laptop. Your own hardware, a cloud server, or serverless. The 2015 MacBook in a drawer, an EC2 instance, a Hetzner box, or a Cloud Burst lease. All of it under your control, all in one fleet.
When a session runs on an enrolled device instead of the machine you're typing on, closing your lid changes nothing. The device keeps streaming, the plan keeps executing, the PR still merges. You walk away; the work carries on.
Kick off a long refactor on your desktop at home, shut the laptop on the train, and watch progress land on your phone the whole way in. The host doing the compute isn't the screen in your hands - that's the whole point.
Point Continuum at a device and paste one command. Linux gets a tiny agent plus a systemd unit; Macs get Continuum in headless mode. Both auto-install over SSH or Tailscale, straight from Settings → Devices. It's your hardware, so nothing leaves your control.
The device shows up honestly - pulsing grey provisioning… while it sets itself up, then settles green live. No hidden state, no "it should be connected by now."
No spare device handy? Connect your own Cloudflare or Vercel account and Continuum leases short-lived sandboxes to run the session. BYO quota caps, idle stops, hard caps - you set the ceiling, the sandboxes wind down when the work's done.
The lease runs on your cloud account, under your keys and your limits. On BYOK, Continuum adds $0 - it just orchestrates the lease, runs the session, and lets the box go. Hosted inference is optional if you want Continuum to supply the models.
Your hardware, your cloud accounts, your keys, your provider subscriptions. Continuum never becomes a middleman - it orchestrates, and the compute + credentials stay yours. A session looks identical wherever it runs: same chat, same diff, same PR flow, with the running host as a chip next to the branch.
Every hop between controller and device rides an end-to-end-encrypted relay or your own tailnet. Move the work from your Mac to an EC2 box and nothing about the interface changes - just where it runs.
Short answers here, long answers in the docs.
Any Linux or Mac device you can SSH to - an old laptop, a Hetzner ARM box, an AWS EC2 instance, a machine in the closet - plus serverless Cloud Burst on Cloudflare or Vercel accounts you connect. Your Mac is the default device and controller; everything else is enrolled from Settings → Devices.
Yes, as long as the session is running on an enrolled device and not on the laptop itself. The device does the compute; your laptop is just a control surface. Close the lid and the session on the EC2 box or the old MacBook keeps streaming - you'll see it pick right back up on your phone or when you reopen.
No. On BYOK, Continuum adds $0: your hardware, your cloud accounts, and your provider subscriptions. Cloud Burst leases run against your own Cloudflare or Vercel quota with the caps you set; the model work still lands on the plans you already pay for. Optional Continuum-hosted inference (Plus, Max, Ultra) is a separate line only if you choose it.
Every session is visible in the fleet with its host chip, so a dead device is obvious, not silent. Respawn the work anywhere - your Mac, another device, or a fresh burst - and pick up from the transcript. The controller is the Mac; devices are replaceable.
Enroll a device in one line and close the lid.
your hardware · your cloud · your keys · Continuum adds $0 on BYOK