Household and roles
A household is one Homestead instance and the people who sign in to it. Homestead is built for a single household per server; there is no hosted, multi-household mode in this version.
Members
Section titled “Members”A member is someone who signs in: you, your partner, your parents. Each member has their own username, password, language and appearance settings. The people you follow are a different thing; see People and accounts.
What members share:
- The people in the household, with their accounts.
- Circles marked Household. Circles marked Only me are private to the member who made them.
What each member keeps for themselves:
- Seen state. When Mali watches Mom’s story, it’s seen for Mali, not for Grandpa.
- Visits and snoozes. “I checked in” and “Not now” on hearth picks apply to you.
- Which circles show in your feed. Each circle has an “In my feed” switch per member.
- Private circles.
| Role | Can |
|---|---|
owner | Everything, including household settings, members, source settings and agent tokens. |
member | Add and edit people, accounts, circles and shares; create agent tokens; invite viewers. |
viewer | Read the feed, stories, people and circles; mark seen; record visits; snooze; edit their own profile. |
The person who runs setup becomes the first owner. A household can’t remove its last owner.
Viewers are made for relatives who only want to look. The Add button and edit actions are hidden for them.
Every API operation lists its minimum role in the OpenAPI file as x-min-role. See
Authentication.
Invites
Section titled “Invites”Members join through an invite link or QR code. Members can invite viewers; owners can also invite members. An invite lasts 7 days by default (up to 30) and can be used once by default (up to 20 times). The full steps are in Invite family.
| Where | Status |
|---|---|
| Viewer invite QR on the last welcome step | On main |
Accepting an invite at /invite/… | On main |
| Household settings: members, roles, invites, revoke | Available on main (W-09) |
Household settings
Section titled “Household settings”The owner sets the household name and default language. The default language is used when a
member hasn’t picked one. On main these are available through the API
(PATCH /api/v1/household); the settings screen is coming. Available on main (W-09)
Sessions and devices
Section titled “Sessions and devices”- A web sign-in lasts 30 days and renews while you use it.
- The phone app and the Firefox companion hold device tokens that last 365 days and renew while used.
- Resetting a member’s password from the command line also signs out their sessions; see Troubleshooting.