How to use PlayOn

Install Home, add nodes if you need capacity, wire a model or MCP agent, start a game.

All guides

• Quick start — Install PlayOn, pick a provider, add capacity if you need it, start a game, share the player link.
• Getting started with AI — Pick local Ollama or a cloud preset so the in-app agent can create, start, and stop a game server.
• Nodes (LAN + cloud) — Add spare PCs or any VPS as compute — PlayOn configures WireGuard for cloud so players still join on the LAN.
• Docker on nodes — Why Docker matters for containerized games, how PlayOn installs it on Linux, and what to do on Windows.
• For players — RSVP on the LAN hub, open the player panel, and join the game.
• Packages and the catalog — What a package is, how to install games from playon.games, and how agents use them.
• Changelog — Notable PlayOn Home releases and how in-app updates work.
• LLM providers — Choose a cloud or local model for in-app agents. Keys stay on your host.
• Venice — Privacy-focused OpenAI-compatible API — common default for PlayOn in-app agents.
• NVIDIA — Sign up for NVIDIA’s API catalog, create a key, and use it as your PlayOn LLM provider.
• OpenAI — Use an OpenAI API key for in-app PlayOn agents.
• Anthropic — Use Claude via Anthropic’s OpenAI-compatible endpoint in PlayOn Settings.
• Google Gemini — Use a Google AI Studio API key with Gemini’s OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
• OpenRouter — Route many models through one OpenRouter API key in PlayOn.
• DeepSeek — Use DeepSeek’s API as the in-app agent provider.
• Ollama (offline) — Run a local model when the LAN has no cloud API access.
• Custom OpenAI-compatible — Point PlayOn at any OpenAI-compatible base URL and model.
• External agents (MCP) — Let Cursor, Claude, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes, or any MCP client set up and manage your game servers.
• Cursor — Connect Cursor to PlayOn over MCP so the agent can bootstrap and manage game servers.
• Claude Code — Point Claude Code at PlayOn MCP to install games and manage servers from the terminal.
• Codex — Connect OpenAI Codex (or Codex CLI) to PlayOn MCP for LAN bootstrap and ops.
• OpenClaw — Point OpenClaw at PlayOn so your agent can bootstrap and manage game servers.
• Hermes Agent — Connect Hermes Agent to PlayOn MCP to bootstrap and operate game servers.
• Any MCP client — Generic Streamable HTTP setup for PlayOn’s /mcp endpoint.