Serving web pages on your local network
Short answer: Ask the AI to build a web page and it saves a self-contained site under
BuildPerch/webpages/. Turn on local network sharing, right-click the page’s folder, and choose Serve to Local Network to open it from your phone or another device over Wi-Fi, through a private link only people you share it with can use.
How do I build a page?
Ask the AI in chat to make a web page or a small site; this uses its workspace-file tools, which are on by default in modes like Assistant. Each page lands in its own folder under BuildPerch/webpages/, with index.html as the entry point. A site can be more than one file (HTML, CSS, and scripts together) and any images, audio, or fonts you point it at are bundled into the page, so the folder is self-contained and portable.
How do I view it on my computer?
You don’t have to serve a page to look at it. In the Files panel, right-click the page and choose Preview to open it in a sandboxed in-app viewer, or Open with OS to open it in your browser.
How do I open it on my phone?
To open the page on your phone or another computer on the same network:
- Turn on Local Network Sharing once in Settings; it’s off by default.
- In the Files panel, right-click the page’s folder and choose Serve to Local Network. The folder needs an
index.html(or a single HTML file) to be servable. - A consent dialog shows the addresses the page will be reachable at, and any outside services it references, each with a checkbox and the files that use it. Leave a service checked to let the page fetch from it, load its images, media, fonts, and stylesheets, and embed it in a frame; scripts only ever load from the page itself. Click Start serving.
A green Serving pill appears in the chat header. Click it to open the sharing window, which gives you a Share link, a QR code to scan from a phone, Copy link, Open in your browser, a Rotate link button, a Having trouble? connectivity check, and Stop.
Is it private?
Yes, by design. The page is reachable only on your local network (or your own VPN), never the public internet. The link carries a built-in, unguessable token, so only people you hand the link or QR code to can open it. The page runs locked down: it can’t reach out to the internet except to the origins you approved when you started serving, sensitive files like keys and configuration are never served, and there’s no directory listing. If a link gets out, Rotate link kills the old one instantly.
What should I expect?
You serve one page folder at a time. Because a shared page is served over plain local HTTP, phone browsers don’t treat it as a “secure” page, so features that require that (camera, location, service workers) won’t run; ordinary pages, images, forms, and dashboards work normally. Serving keeps running when you close the sharing window (it minimizes to the tray) and through workspace switches; it stops when you click Stop or quit the app.
If another device can’t open the link, click Having trouble? in the sharing window. The two usual causes are the Windows firewall and a network that Windows has classified as Public. For the first, the check offers to add a firewall rule for Build Perch that applies on private networks only; it explains what the rule does and asks you first, Windows asks for administrator approval, and the same check removes the rule again later. For the second, both the serve dialog and the check name the network and offer two choices: allow Build Perch on that network only, through a firewall rule pinned to that network that does nothing anywhere else and changes nothing else about Windows, or also mark the network as Private if it’s your own home or office and you want Windows sharing there too. Each choice explains what it does, asks you first, and needs administrator approval; nothing is ever opened on a public network without that. If the page’s files change while it’s being served, the window shows a warning; accepting the current files clears it, and the link and QR code stay the same.