Remote Control

Last updated 7 August 2026

Driving a finished show from outside Backstage — a control system, a browser, a stream-deck surface, a script, or an AI agent.

Everything here assumes the show exists. Building it is the earlier stages; this section is about reaching in and operating it.

Choose a route

Three ways in. They are alternatives — pick the one that fits who or what is doing the driving.

Route	Best when
The JSON show-control protocol Enable and Configure the Show-Control Protocol	The standard interface. A control system — Crestron, AMX, Q-SYS, or your own application — drives the show over TCP or UDP. Everything below is reachable through it.
A Web Console Build and Serve Web Pages with the Web Console	A person is driving, not a system. Build a page in Backstage, serve it, and they operate the show from any browser — no Backstage interface at all.
A node-editor graph Node Editor	The customisable route, for whatever the first two do not cover — an unusual protocol, a conversion, a condition, a control surface shaped to one show.

The protocol is off by default. Enable it in Settings > Remote Control before anything here will answer.

What can be driven

Every element a control system can reach, and the domain that addresses it. The detail for each — actions, arguments, status fields — is reference, and lives under Show-Control Protocol next to the window and node references. The pages moved there; the links below still reach them.

Element	Domain
Remote Control: Sequencers	`seq` — transport, position, speed, fades
Remote Control: Steppers	`step` — transport and step selection
Remote Control: Audio Mixers (Output and Matrix)	`output` and `mixer` — levels and mutes, both mixer kinds
Remote Control: Calibrators	`cal` — start an alignment or black level pass, cancel, restore
Remote Control: Broadcast Schedulers	`bcast` — arm or disarm the week plan, force an entry
Remote Control: NDI Input Slots	`input` — route an NDI source to an input slot
Remote Control: Node Endpoints	`node` — labelled endpoints your own graph exposes

Other interfaces

Guide	What it is
Control Backstage with the Bitfocus Companion Module	Stream Deck and other Companion surfaces, over the JSON protocol, with feedback and ready-made presets
Control Backstage via OSC	OSC, for QLab, Watchout, MA desks and anything else that speaks it
Trigger Playback via UDP	Plain UDP triggers from a hardware controller
ArtNet and sACN encode/decode	Art-Net and sACN encode/decode — exchanging channel values with a lighting desk, in either direction
Drive Backstage Headlessly with the Automation API	The Automation API and its MCP endpoint — scripting and AI agents, over HTTP. A separate and wider grant than show control: it can build scenes and import media.

Art-Net and sACN appear in two places, and the split is by what you are doing. Sending pixels — Backstage as a lighting engine driving LED fixtures — is an output, under Output. Exchanging channel values with a desk is remote control, and lives here.