Smart routing
Let a cloud job use your own browser whenever it is open, without touching what you are doing.
By default, cloud Astarii run on our servers so they work with your computer off. Smart routing adds one option on top: if your browser happens to be open when a job is due, run it there instead.
Why turn it on
- It uses your own IP. Some sites are friendlier to a normal home connection than to a datacentre one.
- It is cheaper for you. Browser runs come out of a much larger allowance than cloud runs. See usage & limits.
What it actually does
The job opens in a separate private window, signed in as that Astari using its own saved cookies. It is not your session: your logins, history and tabs are untouched, and the Astari's are never mixed into your normal browsing. The window closes when the run finishes.
It will not take over your screen or steal focus while you are working.
Turning it on
There are two switches, and the specific one wins:
| Account-wide | Settings → Smart routing. Applies to every cloud Astari that has not been decided individually. |
| Per Astari | On the Astari's own page, under Where this Astari runs. Set it to always prefer your browser, always use the cloud, or follow the account setting. |
So you can turn it on everywhere and still pin one Astari to the cloud, and that choice survives you changing the account setting later.
The private window is the whole point, and Chrome will not let an extension open one unless you allow it by hand. Open chrome://extensions → Astarii → Details → turn on Allow in Incognito.
Without it, these runs quietly go to the cloud instead. Settings will tell you if this is what is holding it back.
When it stays in the cloud anyway
Smart routing never breaks a job to satisfy a preference. A run goes to the cloud if any of these are true:
- Your browser is not open, or is not signed in to the Astarii extension.
- Allow in Incognito is off.
- The Astari has no saved session for the site yet. Without the same cookies a cloud run gets, it would land signed out, so it is not worth doing.
- The Astari is set to run on this computer (desktop). Those are pinned on purpose, because they may need applications only that machine has.
- You are continuing an earlier run — that picks up a page the cloud browser still has open.
Timing
Expect up to a minute for a smart-routed run to start. Chrome only lets an extension wake on a one-minute timer, and that is its floor, not ours. Scheduled runs simply start a little later; when you press Run yourself, the dashboard tells you the job went to your browser so it does not look stuck.
If your browser closes before it picks the job up, the job goes back to the cloud on its own.
What is sent to your browser
Only the Astari's cookies, and only for the length of the run. Saved passwords never leave our server — the key that unlocks them stays there. Once the cookies are handed over they are wiped from our side, and if your browser never takes the job they are wiped anyway.