Apps¶

Skywire visors host apps — programs that ride the encrypted Skywire network instead of the open internet. Each app is addressed by the hosting visor's public key (not an IP), runs over whatever transport the router selected (STCPR, SUDPH, or DMSG), and is gated by the visor's whitelist where access control applies.

Most apps come in a server/client pair: one visor hosts the service, another connects to it. They are configured in skywire-config.json under apps (start on boot with auto_start) and controlled at runtime through skywire cli or the hypervisor UI.

Which app do I want?¶

You want to…	Use	Why
Route all of a machine's traffic through a remote exit	VPN	IP-level tunnel; your public IP becomes the server's
Proxy one application's traffic (browser, curl, …)	SOCKS5 proxy	Per-application SOCKS5; lighter than a full VPN
Expose/reach a specific TCP port on a remote visor	SkyNet	Peer-to-peer port forwarding (web servers, SSH, databases)
Open a remote shell / transfer files on a visor	PTY	Key-addressed shell + sftp over the pty subsystem
Chat with other visors	Skychat	Direct and group messaging
Reach a visor or deployment service by public key from a browser / `curl` over dmsg	Resolving proxy	`.dmsg` / `.skynet` SOCKS5 resolver (`skywire cli resolver`); the supported way to view deployment-service data without a clearnet hop

VPN vs. SOCKS5 is the most common decision: the VPN captures everything at the IP layer (and must run server and client on different machines), while the SOCKS5 proxy only carries traffic from applications you point at its local port — no host-network reconfiguration, and both ends can even be the same machine.

App reference¶

App	Role	CLI	Default port
PTY	shell / sftp host	`skywire cli pty`	dmsg `22`
Skychat	messaging	`skywire cli skychat`	`1`
SkyNet server	port-forward host	`skywire cli skynet srv`	forwarding `57`
SkyNet client	port-forward client	`skywire cli skynet`	`57`
SOCKS5 server	SOCKS5 proxy host	`skywire cli proxy server`	`3`
SOCKS5 client	SOCKS5 proxy client	`skywire cli proxy`	`13`
VPN server	VPN host	`skywire cli vpn server`	`44`
VPN client	VPN client	`skywire cli vpn`	`43`

Ports are the visor's internal app-routing ports (set per app in skywire-config.json), not host network ports.

Configuring an app¶

Every app entry in skywire-config.json has the same shape:

{
  "name": "skysocks",
  "args": ["-passcode", "123456"],
  "auto_start": true,
  "port": 3
}

name — the app binary.
args — app-specific flags (see each app's page).
auto_start — start the app when the visor boots.
port — the visor's internal routing port for the app.

See each app's page for its args, CLI commands, and examples. For the full flag set of every command, see the Command Reference.