Fabric

The Fabric tab inside Operations is where you configure the cross-machine substrate — the peer-to-peer mesh that lets one instance span the user’s own Apple devices. See the Cross-machine concept page for the substrate picture; this page describes the in-app controls.

What Lives Here

Control	What It Does
Transport	Picks the mesh transport the fabric uses to connect the user’s devices. The platform supports a default peer-to-peer option; advanced configurations may add a relay or self-hosted transport.
Pads	Collaborative documents shared across the user’s fleet. Configure the pad transport here before pads become usable on the Home pane.
Federated chats	Inter-device or inter-fabric chat channels. Requires a configured transport.
Device list	Devices currently enrolled in this instance’s fabric. Shows last seen, host, and bearer status per device.
Enroll a device	Initiate enrolment of a new device. Produces a one-time enrolment artefact the new device consumes during first run.
Evict a device	Revoke a device’s bearer and remove it from the fabric. See Cross-machine for what eviction does and does not do.

Single-Device Users

If the user runs one device, the Fabric tab has very little to configure. Transport is moot, pads sync to nothing, federated chats have no peer. The tab still exists and the substrate still runs — it just has nothing else to coordinate with.

The user with multiple devices gets cross-machine reach the moment a second device is enrolled here under the same identity.

Identity And Trust

Every device in the fabric carries a personal identity bearer the user authorised. A new device joins only after explicit enrolment from an existing device. There is no auto-pairing. Bearers are rotatable from this tab — useful when retiring a device or recovering from a suspected exposure.

See Cross-machine for the trust posture in detail.

Federation Is A Different Concept

The Fabric tab configures cross-machine — one user’s instance reaching across that user’s own devices. Federation — joining one user’s fabric to another’s, in families, organisations, or guilds — is a separate concept with its own identity story. The Fabric tab does not (yet) configure federation; see Federation for the distinction.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Where To Check
Pads section empty	Transport not configured. Set transport first.
Federated chats unavailable	Transport not configured, or no peer enrolled yet.
Device shows but is unreachable	Network path, then bearer state. Beacon (local discovery) should find devices on the same network without further configuration.
Eviction did not remove the data	Expected. Eviction is a trust action, not a data wipe. See Cross-machine.

Cross-machine — the substrate picture for the fabric
Fabric — the glossary definition
Federation — the between-fabrics concept the Fabric tab does not configure