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Workshop Helmsmanby smallTech

Free · self-hosted · no signup

Run a hands-on workshop without losing the room.

Workshop Helmsman turns your agenda into live milestones your participants tick off in their browser — so you can see, in real time, exactly who is flying, who is stuck and which step is quietly swallowing everybody.

Create your workshop — free, no signupSee how it works

Takes about two minutes. Nothing to install — for you or for the room.

What you get

Everything you need to run the room, and nothing you don't.

One tool, built for the awkward middle of a workshop — when half the room is ahead, a quarter is stuck, and you cannot tell which is which.

  • A live dashboard across 300+ participants

    Every participant, their progress and their current milestone, refreshed every couple of seconds. Median progress, the completion distribution and per-milestone counts tell you whether to slow down or push on.

  • Content-rich markdown & code milestones

    Each milestone carries real instructions — headings, lists, links, tables and syntax-highlighted fenced code blocks. Write it once in the composer; the room reads it in their own browser at their own pace.

  • Name-only joining, nothing to install

    Participants open one link and type their first name. No account, no download, no app. A cookie auto-resumes them if they refresh or close the tab, and everyone gets a personal link that carries their progress to another device.

  • A real-time help desk

    A stuck participant raises a hand from the milestone they are on. It lands in your queue with their name and that milestone's context, you answer in markdown in-page, and the answer appears on their screen — no hands up, no shouting across the room.

  • Broadcast, pause and advance — room controls

    Pin an announcement to every screen, pause the room while you demo at the front, or advance everyone (or a chosen few) past a milestone that broke. Every one of those actions is undoable for 30 seconds.

  • Proactive stuck & bottleneck alerts

    Helmsman watches the shape of the room for you: who has not moved for too long, which milestone is quietly swallowing everyone, and whether your pace is on track against the plan.

  • A full audit trail

    Every facilitator action — broadcasts, advances, pauses, edits, help answers — is recorded with who, what and when, and browsable in a tab on the dashboard. Nothing about the session is a mystery afterwards.

  • CSV export of everything

    One click gives you every participant, their join answers, their completion times and their milestone-by-milestone progress — ready for your follow-up mail-out, your grading sheet or your retro.

How it works

The facilitator → participant loop, end to end.

  1. 1

    Compose your milestones

    Name the workshop, write each step in markdown with the exact commands and code, and set an optional time budget per step.

  2. 2

    Share one join link

    Put the link (or its QR code) on the projector. That single link is everything the room needs.

  3. 3

    The room joins by name

    Participants type a first name and are straight into the first milestone. No accounts to create, no seats to assign.

  4. 4

    Watch the dashboard move

    Tick counts climb live. You can see instantly who has raced ahead, who is stuck, and where the whole room has bunched up.

  5. 5

    Answer help without breaking the flow

    Questions arrive with their milestone context. Answer in-page, broadcast the fix if three people hit it, or advance everyone past a bad step.

  6. 6

    Export the results

    When it ends, download the CSV. The workshop stays browsable as a read-only archive at the same link.

That is the whole loop. Your first workshop takes about two minutes to compose.

Start composing →

Straight answers

Frequently asked questions

Including the limits — they are real, and better known before you start than after.

Do I need an account?
No. There is no signup, no password and no login anywhere in Workshop Helmsman. When you create a workshop you are given a private facilitator link — that link is the credential. Anyone holding it can run that workshop; anyone without it cannot see it.
What happens if I lose my dashboard link?
You lose your way back in. There is no account to recover and no password reset, so save the dashboard link the moment it is shown to you — bookmark it, paste it into your notes, mail it to yourself. The reveal screen gives you a copy button and says the same thing.
Then what is the “Your workshops” list?
A convenience, not an account. Your browser remembers the workshops you made here so you can jump back in from this page. Clear your browser data, switch browsers or use a private window and the list is gone — the workshop itself is untouched and still reachable at its link.
What do participants need?
A browser and the join link. Nothing to install, no account, no extension. It works on a laptop or a phone, and their progress survives a refresh, a closed tab or a move to another device via their personal link.
Is it really free? Where does my data live?
Yes — Workshop Helmsman is free and open, and it is self-hosted: the workshop data lives in this instance's own database, on the machine serving this page. No third party gets your participants' names.
Why do you ask for my email at the end?
Purely so the person running this instance can contact you about your workshop if they have to, and as a light deterrent against abuse. No mail is ever sent to you — not a confirmation, not a newsletter — and it is never shared. Your dashboard link is shown on screen, not mailed.
How many people can join one workshop?
It is built and tested for rooms of 300+ concurrent participants on modest hardware. A typical lab of 20–60 will not make it break a sweat.

Ready when you are.

Compose your milestones, share the link, watch the room move.

Create your workshop — free, no signup