What Started

Connect machines

What Started Agent for Windows and Linux

The What Started Agent runs on a PC or gateway next to a machine: the line PC, an HMI PC or a Raspberry Pi. You pair it with one machine using a short code, and it sends that machine's heartbeat from then on, in the background, also after a restart.

Today it tells What Started that the PC is on and can reach us. It does not read the machine's own status or counter yet. For those, use one of the ping examples or have the PLC send pings itself.

Install on Windows

  1. Download heartbeat-agent.exe from the download page. It lists the SHA-256 of each file if you want to check what you downloaded.

  2. Open a terminal as administrator (right-click Terminal or Command Prompt, then Run as administrator), go to the download folder and run:

    heartbeat-agent.exe install

    Windows may warn that the publisher is unknown; choose More info, then Run anyway.

  3. The setup page opens in your browser at http://localhost:47100. You can open it again later from the Start menu: What Started Agent.

The agent runs as the Windows service What Started Agent, starts with Windows and restarts itself if it stops. It only makes outgoing HTTPS requests to What Started, so no firewall ports need opening.

Pair it with a machine

  1. On the setup page, click Get a pairing code. A code like K7PQ-4QXM appears. It works for 15 minutes.
  2. In What Started, go to Settings › Devices (owners and admins), enter the code and click Find device. The setup page also has a link that fills the code in for you.
  3. Pick the machine the PC is next to and click Pair device.

The setup page switches to Sending for the machine within a few seconds, and the machine's tile turns live on the board.

If the machine already gets pings from somewhere else, What Started lists them. Leave Stop those once this device takes over ticked to revoke them when the agent starts sending, or untick it to keep both.

What the agent stores

Only a ping token for that one machine, encrypted with Windows' own data protection. It never has your password or an API key, and the token can't read anything from What Started; it can only report for its machine.

Unpair or move it

  • On the device: open the setup page and click Unpair this device.
  • In What Started: Settings › Devices, then Unpair next to the device. The agent notices on its next ping and asks to be paired again.

To move the PC to another machine, unpair it and pair it again with a new code.

Uninstall

In a terminal opened as administrator:

"C:\Program Files\Heartbeat Agent\heartbeat-agent.exe" uninstall

Unpair first if you want the token revoked in What Started straight away.

Linux and Raspberry Pi

There are builds for Linux on x86 and ARM (Raspberry Pi 4 and newer) on the download page. Run it as a systemd service and open the setup page on the device itself. Ask us for the service file.