Sharing A Graph

A synced graph can be shared with other people, who then edit it with you in real time. Sharing is cryptographic: each member holds the graph's key, so the server relays edits it cannot read.

Roles

Every synced graph has exactly one Owner, the person who created it, and any number of Players. Together they are the graph's members.

	Owner	Player
Read and edit everything	Yes	Yes
Invite people	Yes	No
Transfer ownership	Yes	No
Delete the graph for everyone	Yes	No
Leave the graph	No: transfer ownership first	Yes
Whose plan pays for storage and players	The owner's	The owner's

A Player does not need Sync+: on the managed service a Free account can join a subscriber's graph, because writes and players on a shared graph count against the owner's allowance.

Invite someone

On the Knowledge graphs page, under Synced graphs, a graph you own has an Invite button.

1. Enter the person's email address. They need an account on the same Sync Server, and they must have set up a device: signed in and unlocked their keys at least once. On a server that sends email, their address has to be verified too, so nobody can receive a graph's keys by registering somebody else's address first.
2. EtherPK shows their security fingerprint. Confirm it matches theirs, in person or over a call you trust, then select Fingerprint matches, send invite.
3. They see the invite under Pending invites on their Knowledge graphs page and select Accept. The graph appears in their list under the name you gave it.

From then on you both hold the graph's key and edit in real time.

Why the fingerprint matters

Your device wraps the graph's key so that only the invitee can open it, using a public key the server hands over. The fingerprint is a short form of that key. If the two strings do not match, the key the server handed over is not the one that person holds, and you should not send the invite. Yours is under Sync settings > Your security fingerprint, shown once your keys are unlocked on that device. It is not a secret, so reading it aloud is fine; the point is that it travels by some route the server is not on.

Editing together

When someone else has the same document open, their cursor appears as a small coloured caret with their name on hover. Each device shows itself under a generated name, something like "Calm Owl", with a stable colour; there is nothing to set up, and the name is stored only on that device. Presence travels encrypted like everything else: the server relays it but cannot read it and never stores it. A caret can take a few seconds to appear, and fades shortly after the other person closes the document or goes idle.

Edits made while offline merge when the device is back, in the order they were made. Undo only ever reverses your own edits.

Everything that belongs to the graph is shared: its name, its settings and toolbar colour, favourites and their order, quick notes, publications and themes. Layout, recents and the Tasks filter are per device. A protected document is the exception to sharing: other members see its name and can delete it, but never its contents (Protected Documents).

An agent connected through the Headless Client appears to other members as a device called "Agent on ", so an edit from an agent never looks like it came from nowhere (The Headless Client).

Leave, transfer, delete

• Leave (a player): you lose access until the owner invites you again. The graph and the other members are untouched.
• Transfer ownership (the owner): hand the graph to one of its players. They become the Owner and you stay on as a Player; nothing is re-encrypted, and they can hand it back later. It works even if you are locked out of your keys, which is how a shared graph survives a lost Recovery Code (Recovery Code And Device Approval).
• Delete (the owner): removes the graph from the server for every member, permanently. You type DELETE to confirm, and the dialog says how many other people lose access. A Local Mirror folder is not deleted.

Forgetting a graph on the Knowledge graphs page is none of these: it removes the graph from this device only.

What a former member keeps

Leaving ends access from then on, but it cannot take back what a device already saw while it was a member. Anything they downloaded, they still have. That is true of any sharing, anywhere.

As of September 2026 an owner cannot remove a player; a player can only leave. Owner-initiated removal, with the key rotated so a removed player sees nothing new, is on the roadmap (Planned Features).