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Hosting basics

A host owns rooms: they create them, choose how they look and behave, and have moderation controls inside them.

Everything in the circle docs applies to you as well — a host in a circle is a participant with extra buttons, not a different kind of user.

Becoming a host

An admin invites you. See People and access.

Getting into your room

Two ways in, and they behave differently:

  • Signed in, no key — open /<room-name>. You arrive as the host, with host controls.
  • Through a participant link (with ?key=) — you arrive as an ordinary participant, even though you are the host. The menu then offers Go Host Mode, which drops the key from the URL and reloads you in as host.

This is useful deliberately: you can see exactly what your participants see.

The room menu

Everyone gets Settings (back to the device screen) and the bug report link. As host you also get:

  • Join URL — copies the participant link. See Inviting people.
  • Room Admin — opens that room's settings page in a new tab.
  • Round Mode — start or stop a round. See Running a round.
  • The End — finishes the circle for everyone. See Ending a circle.

Removing someone

Hover over a participant's circle and a kick control appears. It removes that person from the circle. They are not banned — the join link still works — so this is for accidents and disruption, not permanent exclusion.

What you cannot do

  • You cannot turn a participant's camera off, and neither can they. Circles is a cameras-on space.
  • There is no "mute all" button. The capability exists in the system but is not currently exposed in the menu. Muting is otherwise automatic — see Sound and camera.