# Live rooms

> How a page updates on every open screen, how many rooms run at once, and what a visitor sees when none is free.

Kind: concept · ~3 min · Verified v0.127.10 · Next: [MCP tools](https://pr-1517-stg.superartifacts.app/docs/reference/mcp.md)

A **live room** is what lets a page change on every open screen the moment somebody answers, without a reload. An artifact has at most one room, and every phone, laptop and projector that opens it joins that one. A room holds up to 500 open pages on every plan.

The room only carries news. Answers are saved through the artifact's [data](https://pr-1517-stg.superartifacts.app/docs/concepts/data.md) whether or not a room is open, so a page that cannot join one still saves everything; it just stops moving until it joins.

## How many rooms at once

A workspace runs a limited number of rooms at the same moment, whoever made the artifacts: one on Free. Each plan's number is **Live rooms at once** in [Limits](https://pr-1517-stg.superartifacts.app/docs/reference/limits.md).

- **Taken** when the first visitor's page connects, not when you publish.
- **Given back** when the last page leaves. A tab left open keeps the room, however long. A phone that loses its signal without closing holds it for about two minutes: the room notices after about 105 seconds, then keeps the grace below.
- **Kept for 20 seconds** after a room empties, for that artifact only. Open pages reconnect every 15 minutes, when their access renews, and after a platform update; the grace stops a waiting artifact taking the room in that moment.
- **Turning live off** on the artifact's **Settings** tab gives it back at once and closes every page open on it.

## When every room is taken

A visitor who opens another live artifact reads, on the served header: *Live paused · input is saved*. Hovering it gives the reason: another of this owner's artifacts is live, and what they submit still saves. The platform's live templates try again every 20 seconds and join on their own once a room is free.

To free one, close the other artifact's open tabs or turn its live connections off. Your agent can tell you which artifact holds each room:

**Which artifacts hold a live room.** Your agent lists your live rooms and what holds them, and changes nothing until you say.

```prompt
Which of my Super Artifacts are holding a live room right now? Call super_whoami and read liveRooms: tell me how many rooms my workspace may hold at once and, for each one held, the artifact and since when. If I want another artifact live and every room is taken, suggest which to turn off with super_artifact_set live false, and change nothing until I say which; afterwards tell me how many open pages it disconnected.
```

## Who hears what

An artifact can declare several **streams**, each with its own audience. A page hears a stream as its `read` allows:

| `read` | A visitor's page hears | The host's page hears |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `own` | its own rows | its own rows |
| `contributors` | everyone's, once it has written there | the same |
| `public` | everyone's | the same |
| `admin` | nothing | everyone's |

Other people's rows arrive **masked**: anything about a person is replaced by an alias, so a page can draw "someone answered" without learning who. On a Restricted artifact, signed-in people you named see each other's display name as the author instead.

## The host and the phase

The **host** is the artifact owner's own signed-in page, or a named Editor's. The host can write to streams only the owner writes, sees the answers as they come in, and moves the **phase**: a word like `question` or `results` that every open page hears at once. Your agent can set it too, with `super_artifact_set`.

A stream can open to everyone from a phase on (`revealAt`), or take answers only during one (`writeAt`). A quiz uses both: answers land only while a question is open, and everyone sees them at the results.

Codes a live page can be closed with are in [Error codes](https://pr-1517-stg.superartifacts.app/docs/reference/errors.md).

Next: [Shared and live pages](https://pr-1517-stg.superartifacts.app/docs/shared-pages.md)