Ownership & Leasing (Advanced)

This page explains how document ownership behaves at a system level.

Lease system

Ownership is managed through a leasing mechanism.

• The active tab holds the lease
• It regularly signals that it is still active
• If it stops responding, the lease expires

Expiry and recovery

• If a tab becomes inactive or crashes, the lease expires
• Another tab can then acquire the lease
• If a laptop sleeps and wakes up, the system re-validates ownership based on focus

Version checks

• Each save checks against the latest known version
• Older changes cannot overwrite newer versions
• This prevents silent data loss

Same-browser vs cross-browser

Same browser

• Tabs communicate ownership directly
• Only one tab holds the lease at a time
• Takeover is fast and reliable

Cross-browser or cross-device

• Ownership is not shared directly
• Changes are synced through versions on the server
• Conflicts are prevented at save time

Design principles

• One writer at a time
• Recovery from crashes and sleep
• Predictable, deterministic behavior

Back to: Document Ownership