Working with others

Local-first does not mean alone. Sync what you choose, share what you mean to, talk without leaving the notebook.

Bench keeps your work on your machine by default. Collaboration is therefore something you opt into, per project and per record, rather than a condition of using the product.

When you do opt in, the rules are conservative on purpose: sync never silently overwrites a local file, sharing is explicit, and losing access to something shared fails clearly instead of leaving you looking at stale data.

06.01

Cloud projects and two-way sync

Put a project in the cloud so it follows you between machines — and to your phone.

People ask

How do I share a project with a collaborator?
What happens if we both edit the same file?
Will syncing overwrite my local work?

Sync is bidirectional and opt-in per project. Bench tracks what has changed on each side and, crucially, never silently overwrites a local file. A conflict always surfaces in a dialog and you decide.

Cloud projects look and behave like local ones — the same folder cards, colours and layout, browse, preview, upload and download. Cards show collaborator avatars, and owners can rename and recolour from the card menu.

Where Project → Sync · Cloud Projectssynccloudcollaboration

06.02

Pings — talk to your lab inside Bench

Direct messages and groups, with attachments, without another tab open.

Messages send instantly and confirm in place, with a clear Not delivered — retry if something goes wrong rather than a silent drop. You can see when someone is typing, who is online, and where your unread messages start.

Paste, drop or pick files and images into a conversation — they upload with the message and preview inline. Images open in a lightbox; downloads go through a save dialog rather than a browser tab. Messages take light formatting — bold, italics, code, lists, and links that open in your browser.

Group conversations let you pull several teammates in and leave when you are done.

Where Pings panelmessagingcollaboration

06.03

Shared inventories, colonies and data spaces

The operational records a group actually shares, shared properly.

Lab spaces and data spaces can be shared with your team. Edits sync per entity so two people working on different parts do not collide, and every change is attributed. Opening a shared data space syncs its dataset cards, so a collaborator sees the full graph rather than an empty space.

Where Lab → Share · Data Spaces → Sharecollaborationlab ops

06.04

When access changes

Losing access to a shared resource fails clearly, not confusingly.

If a collaborator is removed or an account closes, Bench notices the change and refreshes the affected view rather than leaving a stale list and a string of failed saves. Your own local copies are deliberately not deleted — losing shared access is not the same as losing your work.

Where Anywhere sharedcollaborationsafety

06.05

Your team

Team members one click from the account menu.

Manage who is on your team, and reach your team page directly from the account menu rather than through a web console.

Where Account menu → Team Memberscollaborationaccount

06.06

The iOS companion

View your cloud projects and start cloud jobs from your phone.

Browse the projects you have synced, see what came back, and start a cloud job while you are away from your desk. It uses the same account and the same cloud projects as the desktop app, so anything you kick off from the phone lands in the project when you get back to it.

Where iOS App Storemobilecloud

06.07

Referrals

Bring a colleague in and you both get credit.

A referral link from inside the app; credit arrives on your account and shows up in your feed when it is redeemed.

Where Account menu → Referralsaccount