Move OctoMY™ from one Node Personality to another without changing your Sentient. Faster than a full Sentient switch — the active Sentient hive stays mounted; only the Node layer is swapped.
When to use this
- You own several Agents and want to operate a different one (workshop bot ↔ garden bot)
- You created a new Agent and want to switch from your Remote to operate it
- You want to try a sandbox Node without losing your current Node's state
- You're testing pairing or hardware against a specific Node
For the conceptual background, see Identity Switching. To change which Sentient is active, see Switch Sentient — that's a different (heavier) flow.
The Lanyard sits in the top-right corner. Its Node chip (the right-most identity chip, blue identity colour) shows the active Node Personality with its identicon and display name.
Click the Node chip — the click handler navigates to NodeSelectionActivity directly. The lanyard no longer carries a separate caret / dropdown arrow; hive switching now lives inside SentientLobbyActivity (reachable from the sentient chip).
You can also reach the activity through OPAL — the node.list task family registered in RegisterSentientTasks exposes the same surface.
The activity is headed "Select Node Identity" with the explanation "Each node is an independent identity for communicating with other devices." It shows an EntitySelectionList — one row per Node Personality owned by the active Sentient.
Each row carries the Node's display name and metadata about its type and recent activity. Tap a row to select that Node — there is no separate Select button; the row tap is the action.
If you want to create a new Node, the list has an action labelled "Create new node…" at the bottom; tapping it launches the delivery wizard for a fresh Node Personality.
Deleting a Node is a separate flow — not part of NodeSelectionActivity. Look for the per-Node management surface inside the Node's own settings activities.
A Node switch is the cheaper of the two switch flows. The active Sentient stays mounted; only the Node layer changes. You'll see a spinner for:
Typical switch time: well under a second for a previously-mounted Node.
When the spinner disappears:
You don't have to have a Node selected to operate as a Sentient. To deselect without picking a different Node:
Useful when you want to manage Sentient-level things (contacts, profile, sharing) without a Node's UI getting in the way.
The same two pause causes as a Sentient switch:
| Pause | What the app does | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Save pending | Waits for in-flight writes | Just wait |
| Open files | Pushes the Open Files activity | Close each holder, or Force continue |
A Node-switch failure during Mount rolls back to the previous Node automatically. The Sentient is never affected.
The Lanyard's Node half is greyed out. No Sentient is active — switch to one first.
My Node isn't in the list. It belongs to a different Sentient. Switch Sentient first (the Switch Sentient guide), then come back here.
I see "No Node" but I just created one. The delivery wizard may still be running for that Node. Wait for it to finish; the new entry appears in the list once the Node has been born.
Switching to a Node doesn't reach my paired Remote. The Remote was paired to a different Node identity. Re-discovery is needed under the new Node — wait a few seconds, or trigger Discovery from Settings. Trust is per-NID, so you may need to re-confirm trust with the Remote.
| Topic | Why it's relevant |
|---|---|
| Identity Switching | What the switch does end-to-end |
| Switch Sentient | The heavier sibling — full Sentient change |
| Personality | What a Node Personality is and how it's generated |
| Discovery and Pairing | Re-pairing under the new Node |