Collaboration
Use Teams workspace invites, roles, channels, presence, calls, and metadata updates.
Updated
Collaboration is the Teams workspace layer for using Athas with a small team.
Availability
Collaboration is available on Teams workspaces. Owners, admins, and accepted members see the same workspace data in the web dashboard and Athas desktop.
Free, Plus, and Pro accounts see an upgrade prompt instead.
Dashboard
Open Dashboard > Settings > Collaboration to manage the workspace:
- invite teammates and copy invite links
- review members and pending invitations
- change roles or disable members
- create workspace channels
- edit channel notes
- add channel guests
- share workspace projects
- review recent activity
- adjust invite rules, seat limits, and update limits
Owners and admins can manage membership and workspace rules. Members can use shared projects, channels, and presence where enabled.
Desktop
Athas desktop shows a compact Collaboration settings tab when the signed-in account has Teams workspace access.
The desktop tab shows:
- workspace membership summary
- pending invitations
- channels
- active presence state
- current document stream status
Detailed member, channel, invite, and policy changes live in the web dashboard.
Presence
Desktop can publish a lightweight presence heartbeat with the active file path, selected channel, and optional follow target. This is metadata only; it does not sync editor contents.
Realtime Documents
Desktop can register the active document and append metadata-only update events for cursor, selection, and viewport state. The server stores document paths, versions, and event metadata without uploading source contents.
This is the transport foundation for future shared editing. Live co-editing, automatic merges, and email delivery are not part of this slice yet.
Realtime Connection
When the account service has realtime rooms enabled, desktop keeps a WebSocket open to a room for the active document and for the selected channel. Updates to your cursor and viewport and call setup messages then reach teammates as soon as they are sent instead of on the next poll. Rooms only relay these messages between connected members; they do not store them or any file contents.
Joining a room requires a short-lived token that the account service issues after checking workspace membership. Desktop renews the token while the connection is open, and the account service checks membership again each time, so someone removed from the workspace is disconnected within ten minutes. If rooms are unavailable, desktop falls back to the regular API automatically.
Voice and Screen Sharing
Members in the same channel can share their microphone and screen from the Collaboration sidebar. Audio and video go directly between teammates over WebRTC. To connect teammates on different networks, desktop asks the account service for STUN and TURN servers; when a direct connection is not possible, media is relayed through Cloudflare's TURN service.
Roles
owner: manages the billing-owned workspaceadmin: manages members, invitations, and workspace rulesmember: uses shared projects, channels, and presenceviewer: read-only workspace access
Choose the right sharing feature
Use Share to Web for a read-only code or conversation link and Preview links for a running app. Collaboration presence/cursor metadata does not synchronize source contents; keep code changes in Git and do not expect live co-editing.