I feel like a lot of folks are saying this kills the Code on your Phone opportunity some start-ups are building for. I don't agree. I feel like coding agents are like streaming services, we will subscribe to multiple and switch between them. So for one there's value in a universal control plane. The other is that mobile as a coding interface should offer more than a remote control to the desktop. I think there's still some space to cook, especially if people are investing 8 hours a day talking to agents, the interface surely matters.
I don't know a single person who is satisfied with the status quo on streaming services where you have to subscribe to multiple ones. Everyone is complaining that the landscape is 1) more fragmented than cable was, 2) costs more, 3) has even more ads than cable
I agree. I spend a lot of time working from my phone so I had to make my own workflow that works for me. I've been following all these bans and drama with the subscription keys and custom harnesses etc. I think there's room for a "universal control plan" that lets you leverage the CLI providers (and whatever crappy interfaces / apis they give you).
Opencode's 'web' command makes your local session run on the browser with same access rights as the cli. It's a pretty slick interface too. I sometimes use it instead of the cli even when I can access both.
You can test it right now if you want with the included free models.
It's changing super fast. I am using it on the desktop mostly and when I tried on my phone there were issues yes. But do try it out again in a few weeks.
(I am actually using zellij on the remote and using various CLIs more than I am using only opencode on the web. I was using wezterm mux until about a week ago but the current state of the terminal is not very good for this scenario. It seems like almost all the CLIs are choking because of nodejs ink library)
Fair point technically, but I think the value proposition isn't the persistent session, rathere it's the abstraction layer. Screen/tmux assumes you know what commands to run. This assumes you know what outcome you want. For someone like me who came to coding late and doesn't have 20 years of muscle memory with terminal tools, the inefficiency in transport is more than offset by the efficiency in intent. Different tools for different people.
Well it DOES have less storage than a Nomad (hence lame), but this way you don't need to pay for a public IP address, or for a VPS to run Wireguard on, or for a commercial VPN solution, and then install a terminal emulator on your phone and set up SSH keys.
Worth noting that this is currently broken for a number of users, I'm on a Max plan and I get the message "Error: Remote Control is not enabled for your account. Contact your administrator" which isn't helpful since I'm my administrator and ... this gets recursive quickly.
This is the real insight in this thread. The false binary of "rest OR work" is dissolving. I do some of my best problem-solving while walking my kid to school or making lunch...the context switch lets things percolate. Having a way to capture that momentum without needing to rush back to my desk and remember what I was thinking would be genuinely useful. The interface matters less than the latency between idea and execution.
There are two types of software engineers: Those who do and then think, or those who think and then do. Claude Code seems to strictly be for the former, while typically the engineers who can maintain software long-term are the latter.
Not sure if we have any LLM-tooling for the latter, seems to be more about how you use the tools we have available, but they're all pulling us to be "do first, think later" so unless you're careful, they'll just assume you want to do more and think less, hence all the vibeslop floating around.
This isn't a binary thing - even if you prefer to build maintainable systems very often the trade-off is - you don't ship in time and there's no long term - the project gets scrapped.
So even if it comes at the expense of long term maintainability - everyone should have this in their toolbox.
I find it often helps me to see a feature before I evaluate if it was really a good idea in the first place. This is my failing--but one thing I like about Claude is that it's now possible to just try stuff and throw away whatever doesn't work out.
I usually have conversations with Claude for clearing my mind and forming the scope of a project. I usually use voice transcription from Claude app to take notes and explore all my options.
Same. When I can't be at my desk, my projects don't stop -- I just do the tasks that work well enough on the phone. Brainstorming, planning, etc. Or tasks that the agent can easily verify.
Having access to my local repository and my whole home folder is much easier than dealing with Claude or ChatGPT on the web. (Lots of manual markdown shuffling, passing in zipfiles of repositories, etc).
> Claude Code seems to strictly be for the former, while typically the engineers who can maintain software long-term are the latter.
Given the number of CC users I know who spend significant time on creating/iterating designs and specs before moving to the coding phase, I can tell you, your assumption is wrong. Check how different people actually use it before projecting your views.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to say "These are the people who use CC, for these purposes" but rather what the intention seems to for Claude Code in the first place. I'm using CC from time to time, to keep up to date with what tooling is available, and also know people who use CC every day and plan a lot up front, sorry if I gave the impression that I meant that everyone using CC is doing that, was trying to get at what the purpose of the tool seems to be, which seems to be true today too, as the models continuously seem to steer you to "doing" and moving faster, not stopping and thinking.
I agree in your basic framing but not your conclusion. Met plenty of do-ers before thinkers that are self-aware enough to also maintain software longterm.
Claude Code and similar agents help me execute experiments, prototypes and full designs based on ideas that I have been refining in my head for years, but never had the time or resources to implement.
They also help get me past design paralysis driven by overthinking.
Perhaps the difference between acceleration and slop is the experience to know what to keep, what to throw away, and what to keep refining.
I’m guessing you’re suggesting it’s ok to lose time if you’re away from your computer enjoying life, and I agree. I also don’t see the issue in finding ways to be save time with work.
If you mean something different, please elaborate.
This resonates hard. I'm a self-taught dev who started coding ~7 months ago, and honestly the conversational back-and-forth with Claude is how I built my entire first app. Not by reading docs cover to cover, but by describing what I wanted, getting code back, breaking it, asking why, and iterating. The idea of doing that untethered from my desk is genuinely exciting — not because I want to work more, but because some of my best thinking happens on walks, not in front of a screen.
Does anyone know if it caffeinates automatically? I sometimes see caffeinate appear in the terminal tab title so clearly they are using it, but I’m just curious if I have to run caffeinate separately if, for instance, the agent finishes its task and is waiting for a new one and I want to keep it alive.
That's not what vendor lock in means. If you sign up for a cloud hoster and then build your whole product on propriety services that you can't get anywhere else instead of using an off the shelf database or open source software, that's vendor lock in.
If you'd have to switch to a different tool to do your coding that's not vendor lock in.
Small UX note: the first time you run the command it only shows a URL. It's not until you run it again that you discover it also generates a QR code, which is actually the fastest way to open it on your phone. Would be nice if the QR showed up on the first run too, almost missed it.
Regular claude code is already a remote access door to your setup, once you've granted a few command execution permissions. (e.g. if it can edit your code and run the test suite)
Oh come on, now that I have a personal remote control already set up using hooks, specifically the PermissionRequest, and Home Assistant push notifications where I can allow or deny a specific action?
TIL that HA notifications can have associated actions. I have the exact same setup as you, except I only receive the notification and then walk over to the laptop to unblock the agent feeling like a human tool call. This will improve my workflow, thank you.
The notification payload for reference, you will also need a permission input_select (pending/allow/deny) and an automation that triggers upon mobile_app_notification_action:
I honestly think this is definitely where (at least part of) the industry is heading, yes.
This is not to say engineers are getting replaced — but, certainly, they are changing their work. And, sure, maybe _some_ of them are being replaced. Not most of the ones I know, though. They are essential to orchestrate, curate, maintain, and drive all of this.
(Now, do they want to orchestrate it? Whole different story...)
Doesn't have to be. Before OpenClaw was a thing, people were experimenting with setups to allow them to drive their agent remotely.
And of course, OpenClaw is built to be a very generalist agent with a chat interface - same effective outcome as remotely controlling an AI harness, but not exactly what everyone wants.
I feel like a lot of folks are saying this kills the Code on your Phone opportunity some start-ups are building for. I don't agree. I feel like coding agents are like streaming services, we will subscribe to multiple and switch between them. So for one there's value in a universal control plane. The other is that mobile as a coding interface should offer more than a remote control to the desktop. I think there's still some space to cook, especially if people are investing 8 hours a day talking to agents, the interface surely matters.
I don't know a single person who is satisfied with the status quo on streaming services where you have to subscribe to multiple ones. Everyone is complaining that the landscape is 1) more fragmented than cable was, 2) costs more, 3) has even more ads than cable
I'm using copilot on vscode and the agent is "Auto" which cost 10% less.
The results are enough for me and I'm not doing things that allow me to differentiate the output between ChatGPT, Claude and, the others.
The agents are more like the radio in my car, whenever I want music, I switch channel until I find something good enough.
If I'm really in need of something special, I'll use Spotify on my phone.
And sometimes, I just drive with the radio off.
I agree. I spend a lot of time working from my phone so I had to make my own workflow that works for me. I've been following all these bans and drama with the subscription keys and custom harnesses etc. I think there's room for a "universal control plan" that lets you leverage the CLI providers (and whatever crappy interfaces / apis they give you).
There's a comparison of the approaches as I see them here https://yepanywhere.com/subscription-access-approaches
Opencode's 'web' command makes your local session run on the browser with same access rights as the cli. It's a pretty slick interface too. I sometimes use it instead of the cli even when I can access both.
You can test it right now if you want with the included free models.
https://opencode.ai/docs/web/
I was having too many bugs using it with my phone, I gave up and went back to Termux
It's changing super fast. I am using it on the desktop mostly and when I tried on my phone there were issues yes. But do try it out again in a few weeks.
(I am actually using zellij on the remote and using various CLIs more than I am using only opencode on the web. I was using wezterm mux until about a week ago but the current state of the terminal is not very good for this scenario. It seems like almost all the CLIs are choking because of nodejs ink library)
We've re-invented GNU screen in the most inefficient way imaginable
Fair point technically, but I think the value proposition isn't the persistent session, rathere it's the abstraction layer. Screen/tmux assumes you know what commands to run. This assumes you know what outcome you want. For someone like me who came to coding late and doesn't have 20 years of muscle memory with terminal tools, the inefficiency in transport is more than offset by the efficiency in intent. Different tools for different people.
Well it DOES have less storage than a Nomad (hence lame), but this way you don't need to pay for a public IP address, or for a VPS to run Wireguard on, or for a commercial VPN solution, and then install a terminal emulator on your phone and set up SSH keys.
That’s not at all how this works. Commands are relayed through Anthropic’s servers with a client polling mechanism.
Yes, that's a significantly less efficient way to manage persistent sessions
I'm pretty sure "how do we disallow running our agents in screen sessions" is on a jira board at some places
Right, that's the "most inefficient way possible" (though personally I disagree, there are more inefficient ways to be found).
You could put the transport protocol on the blockchain, I suppose
You are making me more creative.
we can upload snapshot of zip files to blockchain, then notify customer via servers
I’m running the agent in tmux in a colo. When I’m at a computer I use that, when I’m on the go the RC app is more convenient
Worth noting that this is currently broken for a number of users, I'm on a Max plan and I get the message "Error: Remote Control is not enabled for your account. Contact your administrator" which isn't helpful since I'm my administrator and ... this gets recursive quickly.
There's an open issue on github for it:
https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/28098
claude /logout -> claude /login -> claude /remote-control
Too many limitations, for now I'll stick with self-hosted https://github.com/tiann/hapi and Tailscale
On Android app it needs Claude GitHub connection with scope to act on my behalf! Otherwise it won't work in the app. Really do NOT like that!
Why does the remote control needs that? For what?
I rather use the common developer tools like termux or mosh etc. on a phone if I need that functionality.
Make a throwaway GitHub account just for it and give it PR access to your private repos.
But the whole point of remote control was to avoid that situation.
Running Claude Code from a phone just seems like a recipe for Alzheimer’s. Rest, then focus and build.
Wait why should I prefer being stuck in the office over taking a walk and periodically steering Claude code by phone?
One could just as easily argue hunching over your desk staring at your computer has neurological implications.
My favorite way to vibe code is by voice while in the hot tub. Rest AND focus AND build.
This is the real insight in this thread. The false binary of "rest OR work" is dissolving. I do some of my best problem-solving while walking my kid to school or making lunch...the context switch lets things percolate. Having a way to capture that momentum without needing to rush back to my desk and remember what I was thinking would be genuinely useful. The interface matters less than the latency between idea and execution.
There are two types of software engineers: Those who do and then think, or those who think and then do. Claude Code seems to strictly be for the former, while typically the engineers who can maintain software long-term are the latter.
Not sure if we have any LLM-tooling for the latter, seems to be more about how you use the tools we have available, but they're all pulling us to be "do first, think later" so unless you're careful, they'll just assume you want to do more and think less, hence all the vibeslop floating around.
This isn't a binary thing - even if you prefer to build maintainable systems very often the trade-off is - you don't ship in time and there's no long term - the project gets scrapped.
So even if it comes at the expense of long term maintainability - everyone should have this in their toolbox.
I find it often helps me to see a feature before I evaluate if it was really a good idea in the first place. This is my failing--but one thing I like about Claude is that it's now possible to just try stuff and throw away whatever doesn't work out.
Was always possible. Now just easier.
I usually have conversations with Claude for clearing my mind and forming the scope of a project. I usually use voice transcription from Claude app to take notes and explore all my options.
Same. When I can't be at my desk, my projects don't stop -- I just do the tasks that work well enough on the phone. Brainstorming, planning, etc. Or tasks that the agent can easily verify.
Having access to my local repository and my whole home folder is much easier than dealing with Claude or ChatGPT on the web. (Lots of manual markdown shuffling, passing in zipfiles of repositories, etc).
> Claude Code seems to strictly be for the former, while typically the engineers who can maintain software long-term are the latter.
Given the number of CC users I know who spend significant time on creating/iterating designs and specs before moving to the coding phase, I can tell you, your assumption is wrong. Check how different people actually use it before projecting your views.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to say "These are the people who use CC, for these purposes" but rather what the intention seems to for Claude Code in the first place. I'm using CC from time to time, to keep up to date with what tooling is available, and also know people who use CC every day and plan a lot up front, sorry if I gave the impression that I meant that everyone using CC is doing that, was trying to get at what the purpose of the tool seems to be, which seems to be true today too, as the models continuously seem to steer you to "doing" and moving faster, not stopping and thinking.
I agree in your basic framing but not your conclusion. Met plenty of do-ers before thinkers that are self-aware enough to also maintain software longterm.
I would definitely disagree.
Claude Code and similar agents help me execute experiments, prototypes and full designs based on ideas that I have been refining in my head for years, but never had the time or resources to implement.
They also help get me past design paralysis driven by overthinking.
Perhaps the difference between acceleration and slop is the experience to know what to keep, what to throw away, and what to keep refining.
On the other hand, you lose a lot of time if you step away from a session and it gets stuck asking for permission to do something simple.
Oh no! Anyway.
I don’t understand this comment?
I’m guessing you’re suggesting it’s ok to lose time if you’re away from your computer enjoying life, and I agree. I also don’t see the issue in finding ways to be save time with work.
If you mean something different, please elaborate.
I want this for Codex.
At this point if one lab comes up with a feature it’s a matter of time before another does the same!
I feel closer to realizing my dream of walking by a forest and whispering back and forth to an LLM to get shit done
This resonates hard. I'm a self-taught dev who started coding ~7 months ago, and honestly the conversational back-and-forth with Claude is how I built my entire first app. Not by reading docs cover to cover, but by describing what I wanted, getting code back, breaking it, asking why, and iterating. The idea of doing that untethered from my desk is genuinely exciting — not because I want to work more, but because some of my best thinking happens on walks, not in front of a screen.
Does anyone know if it caffeinates automatically? I sometimes see caffeinate appear in the terminal tab title so clearly they are using it, but I’m just curious if I have to run caffeinate separately if, for instance, the agent finishes its task and is waiting for a new one and I want to keep it alive.
That's what I've been doing with termux, mosh, and tmux.
Yeah the remote control featureset is pretty limited right now. I did a comparison here https://yepanywhere.com/claude-code-remote-control/ (with my own project). I'm sure they'll iterate on it. Overall it's such an obvious feature for them to add I'm surprised it took them so long to ship. There are probably at least 50 such projects that people have made (https://github.com/kzahel/yepanywhere/blob/main/docs/competi...)
The one feature drawback of tailscale/tmux/termius is no file upload. And ergonomics, ability to view files/diffs easily, though that's subjective.
Perhaps it took a while to figure out how to do it over HTTP, especially the security stuff.
With e.g. tmux you'll piggyback on decades of SSH development.
> SSH development.
Or Mosh, just like OP said. Mosh handles interruptions much better than SSH does
As I understand it, Mosh piggybacks on SSH. Have they recently dropped the SSH negotiation?
Which is so much better because you can do other terminal stuff and you can avoid vendor lock in.
That's not what vendor lock in means. If you sign up for a cloud hoster and then build your whole product on propriety services that you can't get anywhere else instead of using an off the shelf database or open source software, that's vendor lock in.
If you'd have to switch to a different tool to do your coding that's not vendor lock in.
News flash...now you can continue to work whilst brewing a coffee, walking the dog or taking a shit.
jfc no
Small UX note: the first time you run the command it only shows a URL. It's not until you run it again that you discover it also generates a QR code, which is actually the fastest way to open it on your phone. Would be nice if the QR showed up on the first run too, almost missed it.
You can also just open the app on your phone and go to the sidebar and click on Code and then you'll see the session at the top of your session list.
Oh nice, didn't know that. Thanks for the tip!
so is harnessing tmux/tailscale new "rsync/FTP is enough" thing nowadays?
How does this handle deauthentication / logging out all sessions?
Claude Code only supports logging out the current session via /logout
There's no logout all sessions equivalent unlike the web UI.
Hoping OpenAI/ Codex will launch this soon too.
I run Codex using terminus, iOS, and a VPS.
Hoping Cursor will also adopt.
Cursor already has agents accessible from web/mobile https://cursor.com/blog/agent-web
But can those web/mobile-accessible agents be on your own hardware, e.g. your desktop at home?
I really don't want to trust an AI company with a remote access door on my setup
Regular claude code is already a remote access door to your setup, once you've granted a few command execution permissions. (e.g. if it can edit your code and run the test suite)
Oh come on, now that I have a personal remote control already set up using hooks, specifically the PermissionRequest, and Home Assistant push notifications where I can allow or deny a specific action?
TIL that HA notifications can have associated actions. I have the exact same setup as you, except I only receive the notification and then walk over to the laptop to unblock the agent feeling like a human tool call. This will improve my workflow, thank you.
The notification payload for reference, you will also need a permission input_select (pending/allow/deny) and an automation that triggers upon mobile_app_notification_action:
Actionable notifications are a bit cumbersome on iOS since you need to long-press the notification for actions, but it does work.even more reasons to sandbox it to a container or vm
So Microsoft/Github copilot was ahead of its time with AI driven PRs?
I honestly think this is definitely where (at least part of) the industry is heading, yes.
This is not to say engineers are getting replaced — but, certainly, they are changing their work. And, sure, maybe _some_ of them are being replaced. Not most of the ones I know, though. They are essential to orchestrate, curate, maintain, and drive all of this.
(Now, do they want to orchestrate it? Whole different story...)
Would be great if it supported API keys. I’m getting by with slack threads of all things for work.
I guess this is Anthropic's early version of a "claw"?
Doesn't have to be. Before OpenClaw was a thing, people were experimenting with setups to allow them to drive their agent remotely.
And of course, OpenClaw is built to be a very generalist agent with a chat interface - same effective outcome as remotely controlling an AI harness, but not exactly what everyone wants.