When you share a project publicly, Localdock gives it a real HTTPS link with a secret key in it. The link expires after an hour and dies the moment you switch it off — an expiring link is one you can't leak.
The moment it's for
Mid-build, a client asks to see it. A designer wants to poke the real thing, not a screenshot. Stripe needs an HTTPS endpoint to send test webhooks to, and your endpoint is a dev server on your laptop. Press Publish on the project's page in Localdock and it has a public link — no deploy, no account for anyone, nothing installed on their side.
And they can send you the bugs
Turn on Tap to Fix for the project and the client gets a small bug button on every page of the link. When something's wrong, they tap it, point at the element and say what they expected — and it lands on your Mac with a screenshot, the request that failed and the console, instead of in an email thread. One click hands it to Claude Code or Codex. How Tap to Fix works on a phone.
What the link actually is
It looks like quiet-lion-7f3a.localdock.link: an opaque hostname that encodes nothing about you or your project, plus a secret key carried in the URL. Anyone who reaches the address without the key sees a page that names nothing. The link expires after an hour, and it dies instantly when you flip the switch off or quit the app. The expiry is a feature, not a limitation: a share that forgets to be turned off turns itself off.
Where the traffic goes (and doesn't)
The tunnel runs between your Mac and Cloudflare's network: Cloudflare carries the traffic and terminates the TLS. Localdock's own server is involved exactly once, ever — to mint that permanent, meaningless hostname the first time you share — and that needs your licence key and nothing else. We never see your traffic, and we never learn your project names, your ports, or when a link is used. More on what does and doesn't leave your machine: the privacy policy.
Webhooks specifically
Paste the link into a provider's webhook settings and test against the code you're editing. Webhook deliveries aren't redirected on their way in, so POST bodies arrive intact — the payload your dev server logs is the payload the provider sent.
The rungs beneath
The public link is the top of a ladder, not a standalone trick. The same project answers at dashboard.localhost on your Mac and at dashboard.local for your phone on the same Wi-Fi — the public rung is just how far you push it today. Wondering how this compares to a tunnel tool? Localdock vs ngrok, honestly.
Questions
Does the person opening the link need an account or an app?
No. They need a browser. There is nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, and no certificate warning to click through — it's a normal HTTPS link.
Is this hosting?
No — it's best-effort sharing straight from your Mac. The project is reachable while you're sharing it and stops being reachable when you stop, when the hour runs out, or when you quit. For anything that must stay up, use real hosting.
Can I share more than one project at once?
Yes. Sharing is a per-project switch, so each project gets its own link and its own off switch — sharing one thing never exposes another.
Localdock is a macOS app with Tap to Fix: point at a bug on any device, and your coding agent gets the rest. A one-time purchase — no subscription, no account. Get Localdock