Remote Agent Plugin

The Remote Agent plugin is an alternative option to the full Device Agent way of managing remote Node-RED instances.

It is a plugin that can be installed into Node-RED, making it quick and easy to get an existing Node-RED connected to the platform without having to migrate to the Device Agent.

The plugin does not provide all of the features of the Device Agent due to limitations of running inside of Node-RED. We will be added more features to continue expanding what is possible. See the comparison with the Device Agent section for more information on the differences.

Requirements

  • Node-RED 4.1 or later
  • Node.js 22 or later
  • A FlowFuse account - either FlowFuse Cloud or a self-hosted installation (FlowFuse 3.1 or later)

Installation

Install the plugin into your Node-RED instance using the Palette Manager, or from the command line in your Node-RED user directory (typically ~/.node-red):

npm install @flowfuse/nr-remote-agent

Restart Node-RED to load the plugin.

Connecting to FlowFuse

In the status bar of the Node-RED editor you will see a 'Connect to FlowFuse' button.

  1. Open the Node-RED editor and click on the 'Connect to FlowFuse' button in the status bar. This will open the settings dialog for the remote agent.
  2. Enter the URL of your FlowFuse platform. This defaults to https://app.flowfuse.com for FlowFuse Cloud - change it if you are using a self-hosted installation.
  3. Click Connect. A FlowFuse window opens for you to log in and choose the team and application the instance should be added to.
  4. Once you complete the steps in FlowFuse, the settings pane will refresh to show the instance details, and the status bar button will show the state of the connection.

Disconnecting

The same settings pane provides a Disconnect option. Disconnecting removes the local connection details - the instance cannot be reconnected to the same FlowFuse entry and will need to be registered again as a new Remote Instance.

What the plugin lets you do

Once connected, the instance appears in your FlowFuse team and you can:

  • View the instance's logs remotely
  • Automatically capture a snapshots of your flows whenever you deploy changes
  • See a record of audit events from the instance in the FlowFuse audit log

Comparison with the Device Agent

The FlowFuse Device Agent and this plugin both connect Node-RED to FlowFuse, but they take opposite approaches to who owns the runtime.

The Device Agent provides a fully managed Node-RED environment; where you can deploy flows remotely, securely access the editor from anywhere and manage the Node-RED version and updates.

This plugin doesn't provide all of these features yet, but we will be continuing to iterate to add more capabilities.

Some features of the Device Agent will not be reproducable with the plugin due to the way it runs inside of Node-RED, rather than around the outside.