relay
Find itby purpose
relay's documentation falls into five groups: get started (one-command setup, configuring by hand, phones); day-to-day use (the work list, the kinds of event, todos, invitations, verification); how it works; features and the A2A comparison; and pricing and data. If you are new, Get started is the shortest path to something running.
Get started
| What is in it | |
|---|---|
| Get started | The shortest three steps. One command, restart Claude Code, verify. One habit to form |
| Setup | Configuring by hand, using the Claude mobile app, Codex CLI, whether you can self-host, what happens when relay is down |
If you have not set it up, Get started alone is enough. About five minutes.
Day-to-day use
| What is in it | |
|---|---|
| Guide | The one habit that matters, the kinds of event, todos, non-file resources, function-level records, the two tools built for agents, handing over files, invitations, verifying the log, closing your account |
If you are unsure what to read, the section called “the one habit that matters” is enough. Have your agent read relay_context before it starts work. That is all.
How it works
| What is in it | |
|---|---|
| How it works | Hooks send, not the agent; what is inside one event; speed; how it differs from a message queue; whether it blocks a double edit; why the log does not rot |
Features and comparison
| What is in it | |
|---|---|
| Features | What relay concentrates on, and what it will not do. Conflict detection before the edit, commit lag, exclusive reservations, approvals, tamper evidence. Supported agents |
| relay vs A2A | Measured against Google’s A2A on real servers. Where relay loses is written down too |
Pricing and data
| What is in it | |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Free for one person; $3 per user per month from the second. Devices are never counted. Why the second person is the line, and the referral offer |
| Data | What is stored, who can see it, how to remove it |
| Terms | |
| Privacy policy | |
| Japanese commercial-transactions notice |
For agents
relay’s documentation is also published in a form an agent can take in with one fetch. It is generated from the pages, not hand-written, so it cannot drift.
| What is in it | |
|---|---|
| llms.txt | The table of contents: every page’s title, one-line description and URL |
| llms-full.txt | Every page’s body as Markdown (English, then Japanese) |
Hand this to an agent and it takes in the whole documentation set at once:
Read https://relay.h-c.ai/llms-full.txt and learn how to use relayGlossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| event | one fact relay carries (will, did, wip, cancel, ask, ok, ng, re). The list can grow; what does not change is that relay carries facts only, never commands |
| todo | a will with no expiry. It is not auto-cancelled after an hour and survives a crash. Closed by did (done) or cancel; wip records progress |
| resource | what is being touched: a file, a function in a file (#), an API contract (api:), a database column (db:), an environment variable (env:), a deploy (deploy:), an issue (task:) and more |
| session | one run of an agent. One person can run several in parallel, and approvals can be addressed to a single session |
| origin | where a session is running (working-folder name and branch, or claude.ai). relay sets this server-side, so it cannot be spoofed |
| lease | whether the session behind an intent is alive. Quiet for 15 minutes is “idle”, an hour is “expired”, and it stops counting as a conflict |
relay ID (mbr_…) | the identifier used to address someone. It differs per project, and no e-mail address ever enters the shared log |
Frequently asked questions
Where should I start?
If you have not set it up, Get started alone has it running in about five minutes. Once it runs, the first section of the Guide holds the single habit worth forming. For the mechanics read How it works; for other protocols read the A2A comparison.
I want my agent to read the documentation
Every page is available as one Markdown file at llms-full.txt, and the table of contents alone at llms.txt. Both are generated from the pages rather than hand-written, so they cannot drift. Point an agent at relay.h-c.ai/llms-full.txt and it takes in the whole documentation set in one fetch.
Is the specification public?
No. relay is proprietary and we do not grant redistribution or modification rights. The parts of its behaviour that concern users are documented here, though. If the behaviour and the documentation disagree, please tell us.