> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.phoneuse.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Start a run on a device > Hand one device your organisation holds to a run with a goal and a budget. Your organisation must already hold it: starting a run is permission to let a loop act for you, not permission to take the device, and this route is the one place that difference is visible (a gesture DOES take). `executor` says who drives it. `phonebase` runs it for you and returns no url. `self_hosted` means your own worker drives it, and the response then carries the run scoped device surface url exactly once: treat it as a credential and give it to one worker only. Left out, it is `self_hosted` for an API key and `phonebase` for a signed-in person. Your credential needs both `runs:start` and `devices:act`. ## OpenAPI ````yaml /api/openapi.json post /v1/runs openapi: 3.1.0 info: title: Phonebase HTTP API version: 0.1.0 summary: >- Every HTTP operation the control plane mounts, generated from the app's own route table. description: >- The control plane exposes two HTTP surfaces, and reading the boundary between them matters more than reading any single endpoint. The CONTROL surface is what your backend and your operators call. It takes a bearer token in the `Authorization` header, and two credential channels resolve to the same authorization context: an OAuth 2.1 access token for interactive clients, or an org scoped API key for headless ones. The DEVICE surface, under `/vrx/{runToken}/v1`, is what a worker calls while executing one run. Its credential is the run token in the url path, and it reads no `Authorization` header at all. Device control itself is not REST. An agent taps, swipes and reads the screen over the Model Context Protocol at `POST /mcp`, one tool call at a time. There is no `POST /v1/devices/{id}/tap`, and if you are looking for one, start with the tool reference instead. Operations marked `"x-phonebase-modes": ["hosted"]` exist only on a hosted deployment; a local checkout does not mount them. servers: - url: '{origin}' description: Your control plane origin. variables: origin: default: https://mcp.phonebase.co enum: - https://mcp.phonebase.co - http://127.0.0.1:8788 description: >- The hosted deployment serves the public origin its metadata document advertises, and that is the default here. Select the loopback entry instead when you are running a local checkout, which serves the port `PORT` names. security: [] tags: - name: Apps description: Save immutable application builds and manage explicit device operations. - name: Managed Proxy description: >- Organization-owned fixed egress resources, independent one-time orders and verified network relationships. - name: Health description: Liveness, unauthenticated. - name: Gateway enrollment description: >- How a new gateway computer trades a one-time enrollment code for its tunnel credential. Unauthenticated: the code is the credential. - name: Gateway releases description: >- What a gateway computer installs: the current edge release of a channel. Called with the gateway's own credential. - name: MCP description: The JSON-RPC endpoint an agent drives devices through. - name: Copilot description: >- Drive a device by chatting. A signed in person's own conversations, streamed. Hosted deployments only. - name: Discovery description: Where to authenticate. Served on hosted deployments only. - name: Runs description: Start, watch and steer a run. - name: API keys description: Mint and revoke headless credentials. Hosted deployments only. - name: Device surface description: What a worker calls with its run token to observe and act. - name: Usage description: Read your org's own receipts and consumption. Hosted deployments only. - name: Devices description: Read the fleet your credential can see. Hosted deployments only. - name: Notifications description: >- What a person needs to know when they are not watching, and which emails they receive. Hosted deployments only. - name: Webhooks description: >- Subscribe your own system to what happens here, and read what was delivered. Hosted deployments only. - name: Provisioning description: >- Whether an organisation is provisioned, and how it becomes so. Hosted deployments only, and both operations answer a declared 503 on a deployment that cannot provision yet. paths: /v1/runs: post: tags: - Runs summary: Start a run on a device description: >- Hand one device your organisation holds to a run with a goal and a budget. Your organisation must already hold it: starting a run is permission to let a loop act for you, not permission to take the device, and this route is the one place that difference is visible (a gesture DOES take). `executor` says who drives it. `phonebase` runs it for you and returns no url. `self_hosted` means your own worker drives it, and the response then carries the run scoped device surface url exactly once: treat it as a credential and give it to one worker only. Left out, it is `self_hosted` for an API key and `phonebase` for a signed-in person. Your credential needs both `runs:start` and `devices:act`. operationId: postV1Runs requestBody: description: The device, the goal, and optional budget ceilings. required: true content: application/json: schema: type: object properties: deviceId: type: string description: The device to drive. leaseId: type: string description: >- Optional, and not compared: the run starts under the lease your ORGANISATION holds on that device, whoever inside it took that lease. Your organisation holding none is 409 `lease_required`; unlike a gesture, this route never takes one for you. goal: type: string description: What the run should accomplish, in plain language. maxSteps: type: integer minimum: 1 description: >- Ceiling on metered steps. A value above the deployment's own limit is capped to that limit, not refused: the limit is deployment configuration rather than a published number, so it cannot be asked for exactly. Read the run's `maxSteps` for the effective ceiling. A value of the wrong type is refused. deadlineMs: type: integer minimum: 1000 description: >- Wall clock budget in milliseconds, at least 1000 (a smaller window would be born expired). Capped by the deployment's limit and by the lease's own expiry, whichever comes first. executor: type: string enum: - phonebase - self_hosted description: >- Who drives the run. Optional: left out, it is `self_hosted` for an API key and `phonebase` for a signed-in person. Any other value is refused. required: - deviceId - goal additionalProperties: false responses: '201': description: The run started. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/StartedRun' '400': description: >- The body failed validation: not a JSON object, a required field missing, a field of the wrong type, an unknown field, or a budget outside its bounds. A `maxSteps` or `deadlineMs` of the wrong type is refused, never read as absent: a budget you set is never silently replaced by the default. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' '401': description: No credential, or one that was refused. headers: WWW-Authenticate: description: >- A bearer challenge. On a hosted deployment it names the metadata document to discover the authorization server from, and it adds `error="invalid_token"` when a credential was presented and rejected. schema: type: string content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/UnauthorizedError' '403': description: >- Authenticated, but this credential does not carry what the call needs. Every authenticated endpoint can also answer `org_not_served_by_instance` here: the organization named by the credential belongs to a different authentication instance, so re-authenticating will not help. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' '404': description: >- No such device that this credential can address, or the device cannot be used right now. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' '409': description: >- `lease_required`: your organisation does not hold that device, so there is nothing to start a run under. `device_unavailable` with `retryable: false`: this device cannot currently start a new run; no run was created. Do not automatically retry the unchanged request. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' '413': description: >- The request body exceeds the server's limit (1 MiB). Refused before the body is parsed, so nothing was partially applied. Retrying the same body will fail the same way: send less. Per-field limits are tighter than this and are documented on the fields themselves; this is the backstop underneath them. The shape is the same on ordinary JSON surfaces, /vrx included. The explicitly configured APK content stream documents its own byte ceiling. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/PayloadTooLargeError' '429': description: >- Over the request budget for this caller. Hosted deployments only. Which budget applied depends on whether this request carried an `Authorization` header, not on which endpoint it was aimed at. Wait `Retry-After` seconds and retry the same request: the refusal happens before any work, so nothing was partially applied. See /api/rate-limits. headers: Retry-After: description: >- Whole seconds until one request is available again. Computed from the caller's own remaining allowance, not a fixed constant. schema: type: string RateLimit-Limit: description: >- The budget in effect for this caller class, in requests per minute. schema: type: string RateLimit-Remaining: description: >- Whole requests that were still available when this request was admitted. Zero on a 429. schema: type: string RateLimit-Reset: description: >- Seconds until the allowance is back to full. Longer than `Retry-After`, which is the wait for a single request. schema: type: string RateLimit-Policy: description: The budget and its window, as `;w=60`. schema: type: string content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/RateLimitedError' '500': description: An unexpected failure, reported by message only. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' '503': description: >- The authentication backend could not be reached. The service fails closed: an infrastructure fault is refused, never waved through. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' security: - bearerAuth: [] components: schemas: StartedRun: type: object properties: runId: type: string description: The run. Use it on every later call about this run. agentRunId: type: string description: >- The run's shareable id: what every receipt the run produces carries, and what a permalink is built on. `GET /v1/runs/{runId}` accepts it in place of the runId. state: type: string enum: - queued - running - needs_user_control - paused - succeeded - failed - canceled description: The run's state at the moment it was created. maxSteps: type: integer description: >- The EFFECTIVE step ceiling: your `maxSteps`, capped by the deployment's limit. Read this rather than assuming your ask was honoured; a request above the limit is accepted and capped, not refused. deadlineAt: type: string description: >- The effective wall-clock deadline, ISO 8601: your `deadlineMs`, capped by the deployment's limit and by the lease's own expiry, whichever comes first. executor: type: string enum: - phonebase - self_hosted description: >- Who drives the run, as decided: what you asked for, or the default for your credential. `phonebase` runs it for you; `self_hosted` means your own worker drives it. vrxBaseUrl: type: string description: >- The run scoped device surface base url, present ONLY when `executor` is `self_hosted`. It CARRIES THE RUN TOKEN, so it is a credential: hand it to exactly one worker and to nothing else. It is returned here and never again. required: - runId - agentRunId - state - maxSteps - deadlineAt - executor additionalProperties: false Error: type: object properties: error: type: object properties: code: type: string enum: - backend_resolution_failed - backend_not_implemented - device_unavailable - device_disconnected - lease_mismatch - lease_required - capability_unsupported - invalid_argument - backend_command_failed - idempotency_conflict - action_outcome_unknown - stale_frame - internal_error - unauthorized - permission_denied - run_not_found - frame_not_found - device_busy - admission_unavailable - checkout_unavailable - checkout_customer_balance - checkout_in_progress - quote_changed - payment_in_progress - out_of_stock - wrong_state - instance_not_served - reverification_required - not_found - receipt_not_found - rate_limited - payload_too_large - origin_not_allowed - api_key_from_browser_origin - key_predates_instance_attribution - org_not_served_by_instance - tenant_binding_unavailable - tenant_binding_unsettled - fleet_at_capacity - forbidden - service_unavailable - invalid_signature - invalid_event - not_settled description: >- The closed set of codes this service answers with on purpose, on MCP tools and REST alike (D152). What each one means and when you get it is on the errors page. message: type: string description: A human readable summary. Do not branch on it, branch on `code`. retryable: type: boolean description: >- Whether re-issuing the same call unchanged is meaningful. It is a property of the occurrence, not of the code, so read the field rather than inferring it. required: - code - message additionalProperties: true description: >- Specific errors add their own fields, such as `deviceId`, `reason` or `capability`. Read the ones you branch on and ignore the rest. required: - error additionalProperties: false description: >- The control surface error envelope. Every non 2xx JSON body on this surface has this shape. UnauthorizedError: type: object properties: error: type: object properties: code: type: string const: unauthorized description: Always `unauthorized` on this response. reason: type: string enum: - missing_credentials - malformed_credentials - invalid_token - token_expired - wrong_audience - missing_org - missing_org_role - unknown_key - revoked_key - expired_key description: The closed set of ways authentication can fail. hint: type: string description: >- A next step in prose, on the reasons where there is one to give: `revoked_key`, `expired_key`, `missing_org_role`, and `invalid_token` when the account is not a member of the named organization. Absent otherwise, so branch on `reason` and show this if it is there. required: - code - reason additionalProperties: false required: - error additionalProperties: false description: >- A refused credential. `unknown_key` covers both a keyId nobody has and a secret that does not match, because telling those apart would enumerate keys for you. Revocation and expiry are distinguishable, since you owned that key. PayloadTooLargeError: type: object properties: error: type: object properties: code: type: string const: payload_too_large description: Always `payload_too_large` on this response. message: type: string description: A human readable summary naming the limit in bytes. required: - code - message additionalProperties: false required: - error additionalProperties: false description: >- Returned when the request body exceeds the server limit. Identical on every surface, including /vrx. RateLimitedError: type: object properties: error: type: object properties: code: type: string const: rate_limited description: Always `rate_limited` on this response. message: type: string description: >- A human readable summary. The numbers are in the headers, not in here. required: - code - message additionalProperties: false required: - error additionalProperties: false description: >- Over the request budget. Raised by the rate limiter before any handler runs, which is why its code is not one of the action codes: nothing was attempted, so no action failed. securitySchemes: bearerAuth: type: http scheme: bearer description: >- The control surface credential. Send `Authorization: Bearer `. Two kinds of token are accepted and they are told apart by shape, not by a separate header. A token beginning `pbk_` is an org scoped API key, whose public half and secret half are generated together and of which only a hash of the secret is ever stored; anything else is treated as an OAuth 2.1 access token and verified against the authorization server's keys. Both resolve to the same context: an org, a principal and a set of scopes. Nothing downstream branches on which channel you used, with one deliberate exception, key management, which requires a signed-in person so that a key can never mint another key. Scopes are enforced when MCP tools are REGISTERED rather than when they are called, so a tool your credential cannot use is absent from `tools/list` rather than refused mid gesture. ```` This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.