Headless auto-mixing

Headless auto-mixing lets you put the laptop down and go play. Once it's on, the server takes over the loop you'd normally drive by hand. It watches for scores to come in, finalizes each round, mixes the next one, and pushes the new matchups out to players' phones — nobody has to tap Mix Next.

When to use it

Turn it on when you're in the games yourself and don't want to keep walking back to a laptop — busy open-play nights, fast-turning rounds, or any session where you'd rather not be tethered to a screen.

It pairs naturally with the player score link — players enter their own court's result on their phones, and the server uses those results to know when a round is done and what to do next.

How to turn it on

From the score-entry surface during a live session, tap Enable Headless, then tell the server how many more games to run. Once you confirm, the server takes control and the modal switches into a read-only monitor view (more on that below).

When you arm headless mode, your current game rules are pushed to players, so each player's score page shows the target score you're playing to rather than a default. Set up your courts and rules the way you want them before handing off.

Starting before the first mix (cold-start)

You don't have to run the first round manually before handing off. If you arm headless before the first mix of a session, the server takes your active-player roster as a snapshot and mixes round 1 itself. The only requirement: at least 4 active players need to be on the roster before you enable it.

Once armed, the server runs the full loop from the very first round — nothing to kick off by hand.

The loop the server runs

Once headless is on, the server repeats this cycle on its own:

1. Collect scores — it watches for results coming in from players' phones (or from the organizer screen) for the current round.
2. Finalize the round — when a round's games are in, it records the results and updates ratings.
3. Auto-mix the next round — it generates fresh matchups using your group's mixer settings, the same engine you'd use by hand.
4. Republish to players — the new round goes straight to everyone's score pages, and the cycle starts over.

It runs for the number of games you set when you enabled it. When that count is reached, headless mode turns itself off and hands the session back to manual control. You can also step back in earlier by taking control — see below.

Your screen becomes a live monitor

While headless mode is on, your score-entry view is a read-only live monitor, not an editor.

• It shows the current round, each court, and who has submitted, confirmed, or disputed their score — refreshing as the server advances.
• The score steppers and the Save action are turned off. The monitor never publishes and never finalizes a round on its own — that's entirely the server's job. This guard is deliberate: it stops your screen from overwriting the live round the server is managing.
• To make any change yourself — fix a disputed court, swap players, or adjust a matchup — use the option to take control. That hands the session back to you, pulls in the latest state from the server, and re-enables editing.

Because the monitor is read-only, you can open it on a phone or a side screen to keep an eye on the session with no risk of bumping a score.

What players see

On each player's score page, a status pill in the session bar shows the current state of the session. When headless mode is running, that pill reads "Auto-rotating" — a quick visual cue that rounds are turning over automatically and they just need to submit their score when the game ends.

If the session itself is paused (separate from the headless-specific Pause button), the pill switches to "Paused". Once the session is active again the pill reflects the current state.

Pausing and resuming headless

Headless pause is different from pausing the session itself. Using the Pause control on the headless panel stops the server's auto-mix cron from advancing — it won't mix the next round until you resume. The session stays active and players can still submit scores for the current round.

Use this when something unexpected comes up mid-session (courts becoming unavailable, a player needing a break, a scoring dispute you want to handle yourself) and you want to hold the rotation without ending the session.

Resume re-arms the cron and the server picks up where it left off.

Taking back control

Take Control ends headless mode immediately and puts you back in manual mode. The modal re-enables editing, pulls in the latest round from the server, and merges any history the server advanced while headless was running — so the game history on your screen stays complete.

Use it when a court is in dispute you'd rather resolve yourself, when you need to make a roster change or swap players before the next mix, or when you want to run the remaining rounds by hand.

What's next

• Set up players' phones first so the server has scores to act on: The player score link.
• Tune the matchup rules the auto-mix will use each round: Mixer settings reference.
• Need to advance before all courts report? See Split session.