Is there a native way to work remotely with a Claude/Codex on a local folder or git repo on your main machine without having to connect it to GitHub? For playing creating apps for personal use I’d rather just keep the files local.
Whats crazier is that Codex is free. I thought I had to pay to even try it out but nope, you can use the desktop app or cli for free, its apparently included in the free plan. You just have to sign in to your ChatGPT account.
Of course I am aware that the caveat here is that all my interaction is part of training, but I’m fine with that. Even Qwen Cli discontinued the free plan.
I’ve been using Codex from my phone for the past couple of months (through a tunnel, not this app).
I was initially quite excited, but I’ve found the results are less than great compared to being at a keyboard.
Something about the smaller screen size and/or lack of keyboard causes me to direct the agent less, which in turn creates more tech debt/code churn/etc.
Maybe I’m just showing my age, and I should practice voice dictation or something more, but my thoughts flow faster and more clearly on a keyboard (less ums).
Dang, I thought this was going to be integration for Codex Cloud, not the (still not available for Linux) Codex App. Not even Codex CLI, alas. You can still access the Cloud option from a mobile browser well enough but I prefer an app UI for poking at the things on the go.
You can do this from the CLI - `codex remote-control` works on Linux (I have no affiliation, just something I noticed).
They might just not have cut a new build yet, today. It 'works' on master, but the mobile app thinks that your build is outdated (v0.0.0) if you build from master without overriding version, so probably easiest to wait until they cut a build if they haven't.
> You can do this from the CLI - `codex remote-control` works on Linux (I have no affiliation, just something I noticed).
Woah, hadn't seen this before!
Off-topic, how long compile times do people have for codex-rs in openai/codex? Even my very beefy computer takes like 30 minutes to compile in release mode, makes me wonder why it's so slow and how this TUI got so large. But then I remember, agents like to write a lot of code, compilers get slower when they have to compile a lot of code :)
This is neat! Now I'm curious, what's left to innovate in the coding agent space? Sure there are the usual suspects like maintenance, security, reliability and other scalability improvements and looks like they will be addressed in the next year or two.
there is something "wrong" with the ux that is hard to pin down. these things generate even text summaries more rapidly than i can read them. i need a better method for dumping info into my brain + dynamic control (if necessary)
When I take time to read all of the output, I often find that it's mostly noise. I don't like noise so I usually don't bother.
But a person can use subagents, if they want, to filter that down. This burns tokens in a big hurry, but I think subagents can be arbitrary local commands (eg, a local LLM).
Or, you know: Just slow down. :) It doesn't always have to be a race, does it?
It's refreshing that unlike Anthropic's Remote Control, this actually... works.
Feels like a testament to the value in taking time and doing it properly.
Now if only codex got its 1M token context window back.
---
Edit: Hmmm. Maybe I spoke too soon. Sigh. Definitely _more_ reliable by far overall, but still have queued messages with responses on my phone that don't show up on my computer, and responses that don't show up on my phone.
Edit 2: New threads created from my phone seem to have a little stall-out, but ones that are underway are behaving reasonably well.
Out of curiosity, what issues did you face with remote control on claude? I use it daily and it seems to work pretty well (bar the issues when my Mac would sleep and then the session would disconnect, but that's an issue on my end).
Myriad, to be honest. I find it to just constantly be in a 'torn' state, the UI is very mushy on mobile with a lot of the affordances from desktop missing, and... it's distinctly less useful when you can't... edit, rewind, start a new thread, etc.
Codex has been great in the last 3-4 months I've been using it, almost exclusively to review existing GDScript code, and this was the feature I wanted most, because with gamedev you get the best ideas when you're out and about or in bed :)
Claude on the other hand has been jank all around from the UX to the UI to the AI itself that it's baffling how it's more popular here on HN: https://i.imgur.com/jYawPDY.png
Sadly this remote control feature doesn't seem to be for Mac to Mac yet? I love my MacBook Neo as a "thin client" for AI and keep the MacBook Pro at home/hotel, but haven't found a good way to share Codex desktop sessions, except maybe remote-screening over..
The best way I've found to work with LLMs is another OpenAI project, Symphony (which I implemented for Linear/GitHub and OpenCode[0]).
It integrates with your issue tracker and makes the tracker the UI for the LLM. It also clones the repo for every ticket, and can set up fixtures/etc. I can work on multiple items at a time, which is fantastic because otherwise you have to wait for the LLMs a lot.
For many people, that's exactly why this is useful: less time on the computer, more time doing other things and occasionally checking in.
In those scenarios, the goal is not "work at any time" but to "be anywhere at any time", or, rather, to "be able to work from anywhere, doing anything".
Is there a native way to work remotely with a Claude/Codex on a local folder or git repo on your main machine without having to connect it to GitHub? For playing creating apps for personal use I’d rather just keep the files local.
I think the `/remote-control` feature does this, if I understand you correctly.
It's supposed to. I've always found it buggy and unreliable but maybe that's just me. (This command exists in Claude btw not sure about Codex)
Whats crazier is that Codex is free. I thought I had to pay to even try it out but nope, you can use the desktop app or cli for free, its apparently included in the free plan. You just have to sign in to your ChatGPT account.
Of course I am aware that the caveat here is that all my interaction is part of training, but I’m fine with that. Even Qwen Cli discontinued the free plan.
I think it's free for about 2 useful requests and then you have to upgrade or wait?
So basically a 20$ Claude plan lmao
I’ve been using Codex from my phone for the past couple of months (through a tunnel, not this app).
I was initially quite excited, but I’ve found the results are less than great compared to being at a keyboard.
Something about the smaller screen size and/or lack of keyboard causes me to direct the agent less, which in turn creates more tech debt/code churn/etc.
Maybe I’m just showing my age, and I should practice voice dictation or something more, but my thoughts flow faster and more clearly on a keyboard (less ums).
the ums are exactly the sign that you speak much faster than you type, so you need a pause for your thoughts to catch up
I've been trying voxtype (using whisper models) lately, and to my surprise all my ums are filtered out. It's really good now actually!
Dang, I thought this was going to be integration for Codex Cloud, not the (still not available for Linux) Codex App. Not even Codex CLI, alas. You can still access the Cloud option from a mobile browser well enough but I prefer an app UI for poking at the things on the go.
You can do this from the CLI - `codex remote-control` works on Linux (I have no affiliation, just something I noticed).
They might just not have cut a new build yet, today. It 'works' on master, but the mobile app thinks that your build is outdated (v0.0.0) if you build from master without overriding version, so probably easiest to wait until they cut a build if they haven't.
> You can do this from the CLI - `codex remote-control` works on Linux (I have no affiliation, just something I noticed).
Woah, hadn't seen this before!
Off-topic, how long compile times do people have for codex-rs in openai/codex? Even my very beefy computer takes like 30 minutes to compile in release mode, makes me wonder why it's so slow and how this TUI got so large. But then I remember, agents like to write a lot of code, compilers get slower when they have to compile a lot of code :)
Oh, that's promising, thanks! I've just been using the npm version.
thanks. i dont use the app and so this is cool
This is neat! Now I'm curious, what's left to innovate in the coding agent space? Sure there are the usual suspects like maintenance, security, reliability and other scalability improvements and looks like they will be addressed in the next year or two.
there is something "wrong" with the ux that is hard to pin down. these things generate even text summaries more rapidly than i can read them. i need a better method for dumping info into my brain + dynamic control (if necessary)
When I take time to read all of the output, I often find that it's mostly noise. I don't like noise so I usually don't bother.
But a person can use subagents, if they want, to filter that down. This burns tokens in a big hurry, but I think subagents can be arbitrary local commands (eg, a local LLM).
Or, you know: Just slow down. :) It doesn't always have to be a race, does it?
I use Termius on my phone to remote and make agent do stuff while i chill or am on road. This seems useful too.
This is really useful for when you just need to approve plans or make small decisions.
It's refreshing that unlike Anthropic's Remote Control, this actually... works.
Feels like a testament to the value in taking time and doing it properly.
Now if only codex got its 1M token context window back.
---
Edit: Hmmm. Maybe I spoke too soon. Sigh. Definitely _more_ reliable by far overall, but still have queued messages with responses on my phone that don't show up on my computer, and responses that don't show up on my phone.
Edit 2: New threads created from my phone seem to have a little stall-out, but ones that are underway are behaving reasonably well.
Out of curiosity, what issues did you face with remote control on claude? I use it daily and it seems to work pretty well (bar the issues when my Mac would sleep and then the session would disconnect, but that's an issue on my end).
Myriad, to be honest. I find it to just constantly be in a 'torn' state, the UI is very mushy on mobile with a lot of the affordances from desktop missing, and... it's distinctly less useful when you can't... edit, rewind, start a new thread, etc.
My own experience has been that it works for about five minutes before it just disconnects or hangs. I’ve never been able to use it successfully.
rust and opensource W
Codex has been great in the last 3-4 months I've been using it, almost exclusively to review existing GDScript code, and this was the feature I wanted most, because with gamedev you get the best ideas when you're out and about or in bed :)
Claude on the other hand has been jank all around from the UX to the UI to the AI itself that it's baffling how it's more popular here on HN: https://i.imgur.com/jYawPDY.png
Sadly this remote control feature doesn't seem to be for Mac to Mac yet? I love my MacBook Neo as a "thin client" for AI and keep the MacBook Pro at home/hotel, but haven't found a good way to share Codex desktop sessions, except maybe remote-screening over..
The best way I've found to work with LLMs is another OpenAI project, Symphony (which I implemented for Linear/GitHub and OpenCode[0]).
It integrates with your issue tracker and makes the tracker the UI for the LLM. It also clones the repo for every ticket, and can set up fixtures/etc. I can work on multiple items at a time, which is fantastic because otherwise you have to wait for the LLMs a lot.
[0] https://github.com/skorokithakis/symphony
friends, you don’t have to always be productive. leave the agent on the computer and take care of yourself.
For many people, that's exactly why this is useful: less time on the computer, more time doing other things and occasionally checking in.
In those scenarios, the goal is not "work at any time" but to "be anywhere at any time", or, rather, to "be able to work from anywhere, doing anything".
Sort of....I guess.
Can someone recommend an IDE that can be used with a self-hosted model (via OpenAI or similar)?