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This is a pretty sophisticated setup. I particularly like how it uses Tailscale.

I've been using the simpler but not as flexible alternative: I'm running Claude Code for web (Anthropic's version of Codex Cloud) via the Claude iPhone app, with an environment I created called "Everything" which allows all network access.

(This is moderately unsafe if you're working with private source code or environment variables containing API keys and other secrets, but most of my stuff is either open source or personal such that I don't care if the source code leaks.)

Anthropic run multiple ~21GB VMs for me on-demand to handle sessions that I start via the app. They don't charge anything extra for VM time which is nice.

I frequently have 2-3 separate Claude Code for web sessions running at once, often prompted from my phone, some of them started while I'm out walking the dog. Works really well!

“ Worst case: Claude does something unexpected on a disposable VM.”

.. with a valid SSH key unless I’m reading it wrong?

This sounds cool but I feel like I need to often run the code in one way or another when verifying what Claude does. Otherwise it feels like driving blind. Claude Code already has the web version which I could use from my phone and fair it can't run scripts etc which limits the output quality. But if I can't verify what it did it also limits how long I can let it run before I need my laptop eventually.

Ofc if you have demo deployments etc on branches that you could open on mobile it works for longer.

Another issue is that I often need to sit down and think about the next prompt going back and forth with the agent on a plan. Try out other product features, do other research before I even know what exactly to build. Often doing some sample implementations with Claude code and click around these days. Doing this on a phone feels... limiting.

I also can't stand the constant context switching. Doing multiple feature in parallel already feels dumb because every time I come from feature B to A or worse from feature G to E it takes me some time to adjust to where I was, what Claude last did and how to proceed from here. Doing more tasks than 2 max. 3 in parallel often ends up slowing me down. Now you add ordering coffee and small talk to the mix and I definitely can't effectively prompt without rereading all history for minutes before sending the next prompt. At which point I might have also opened up my laptop.

Ofc if you truly vibe code and just add feature on feature and pray nothing breaks, the validation overhead and bar for quality goes down a lot so it works a lot better but the output is also just slop by then.

I typed this on my phone and it took 20 minutes, a laptop might have been faster.

Pandora's box is open; we're moving towards a world where white collar workers will be working 24/7 and they'll be expected to do so.

It won't matter if I'm washing the dishes, walking the dog, driving to the supermarket, picking up my kids from school. I'll always be switched on, on my phone, continuously talking to an LLM, delivering questionable features and building meaningless products, destroying in the process the environment my kids are going to have to grow in.

I'm a heavy LLM user. On a daily basis, I find LLMs extremely useful both professionally and personally. But the cognitive dissonance I feel when I think about what this means over a longer time horizon is really painful.

People need to start having conversations about existential risk here. Hinton, Nobel Prize winner in AI, thinks there's a decent chance AI executes the entire human species. This isn't some crank idea.
I do the same, but with ConnectBot and Gemini CLI. I have found ssh sufficiently good (mosh required some port forwarding dance, that Tailscale may have solved for the author).
I did much similar with Tailscale over summer.

But anthropic has since launched the ability to “teleport” sessions to mobile. (Claude Code is baked into the app). The iOS experience has been smooth for the most part.

People keep saying things like “2026 is the year of background agents, sandboxes, etc” but imo the harness will eat the entire platform stack. It already is. It will only get better.

This is a bit too "plugged in" for my liking. If I am in line for coffee, it's usually respite away from work, not an opportunity to do more. However, I do love the tmux + worktree + claude setup. I use this now and I know a few peers who do too and it's very enabling. This is what work feels like these days: cycling through agents, each working on a task, checking their work, unblocking them.
I have been doing the same but with happy. It works quite well for quick brainstorms etc. but for deeper work on a real research / plan / implement thing I think you need to actually engage with the output which is hard to do on mobile. Maybe if I had a better UI than terminus to read and check the remote files I would be able to get more done.

I am also hoping / trying to put Claude code on top of a personal zettlekasten to automate more of my “personal life” tasks and get more stuff done for me. Haven’t gotten it really singing yet but I think that could also be really cool.

I do want a setup like this, however, most of my development is on Windows which means license cost is usually higher than the cost of the VM. I could run vm's on my home machine, but even then I feel like the terminal experience is quite poor. You want to have a mobile native code, to check the code/read the plans. So far I have been using teamviewer to access my home desktop which works, albeit annoying to use, plus I don't have fancy notifications. Perhaps a web first approach with a mobile responsive web app would work, that shows the files of the project as well as the terminal.
I don't like typing long messages on my phone so this workflow, as cool as it sounds, wouldn't work for me. My current setup is that I have a Claude Code hook that runs whenever CC needs my input and it uses my Home Assistant instance to send a push notification to my phone. I then return back to the computer and continue on the work.

This works reasonably well, but there is a gap for small messages or review comments. I am waiting for Anthropic to shop a feature where the Claude mobile app is able to mirror Claude Code (not the Claude desktop app) and lets me see the diffs of the changes it made and send commands. I'd use this to steer the conversation while on the go with short commands or prompts so that when I'm back at the computer I can focus on the important feedback that I can jot down quickly on the computer keyboard.

I'll half-ass something from my phone to take an idea down, but this setup also works with a keyboard. I just run claude in a container with --dangerously-skip-permissions and it does a lot more work with a lot less questions.
This is interesting. Particularly the notifications flow. I run a simpler setup with webssh on my iPhone over WG back to my LAN and manage Claude that way. It’s fine, and can handle disconnects (with some big cons). I can run code-server via browser on my iPad and can get all the same benefits mosh provides.

One thing to note: the VM seems like an absolute waste of money. If you are using tailscale, might as well connect back to bare metal VMs you can run at home. Save yourself some coin.

Shout out to https://exe.dev for this stuff. It'a a VM provider service. It makes it stunningly easy to get https up and going, has a front end http gateway that does all the hard parts for you.

But relevant to this article here, it also has a super sick web based agent, Shelley, that is quite adequate for using from the phone.

I used it to build a little guestbook thing in ~2 hours, late night in bed in my phone. Link to submission, and my post on it there, and the guestbook I wrote. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46397609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46398115 https://nan-falcon.exe.xyz

I'd also note that OpenCode is a solidjs app, that can run in tui (how most folks know it) or the web. And it has an excellent excellent plugin architecture. The work in this post to build workflows is great!

Setup is still rough around the edges (use an agent to set it up), but clawdbot (prev clawdis) from Peter Steinberger works phenomenally well for agent orchestration and personal assistance. The community for clawd is exploding right now, and I think this is purely based on merit. It’s been a game changer for my vibe coding workflow, and lots of fun.

https://github.com/clawdbot/clawdbot

I do similar except I log into my office workstation and avoid the extra fees. I detailed my setup in an x post here https://x.com/bobjordanjr/status/1999967260887421130?s=20 and the TLDR is:

1.Install Tailscale on WSL2 and your iPhone 2.Install openssh-server on WSL2 3.Get an SSH terminal app (Blink, Termius, etc.). I use blink ($20/yr). 4.SSH from Blink to your WSL2’s Tailscale IP 5. Run claude code inside tmux on your phone.

Tailscale handles the networking from anywhere. tmux keeps your session alive if you hit dead spots. Full agentic coding from your phone.

Step 2: SSH server In WSL2:

sudo apt install openssh-server sudo service ssh start

Run tailscale ip to get your WSL2’s IP (100.x.x.x). That’s what you’ll connect to from your phone.

Step 3: Passwordless login In Blink, type config → Keys → + → create an Ed25519 key. Copy the public key. On WSL2:

echo "your-public-key" >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Then in Blink: Hosts → + → add your Tailscale IP, username, and select your key. Now it’s one tap to connect.

Step 4: tmux keeps you alive iOS kills background SSH connections. tmux solves this.

sudo apt install tmux tmux claude

Switch apps, connection dies, no problem. Reconnect: I can just type `ssh dev` in blink and I'm in my workstation, then `tmux attach`, you’re right back in your session.

Pro tip: multiple Claude sessions Inside tmux: •Ctrl+b c — new window •Ctrl+b 0/1/2 — switch windows I run different repos or multiple agents in the same repo, in different windows and jump between them. Full multi-project workflow from my phone.

It makes sense - i build something very similar for my company over the last couple weeks :)

I have a tweak that allows pasting images to claude code over SSH:

How it works:

PTY Interception: It creates a pseudo-terminal (PTY) to wrap the SSH process, allowing it to sit as a "man-in-the-middle" between your keyboard and the remote shell.

Bracketed Paste Detection: It monitors stdin for "bracketed paste" sequences (the control codes terminals send when you Cmd+V or drag-and-drop a file).

The "Hook": When a paste occurs, it pauses execution and scans the text for local macOS file paths.

Auto-Sync: If a local path is found, it immediately syncs that file to the remote server (using the provided SSH key) in the background.

Transparent Forwarding: Once the sync is complete, it forwards the original text to the shell.

You can drag and drop a file from your local Finder into a remote SSH session, and the file is automatically uploaded to the server before the path appears on the command line. Also works with copy paste, screnshots.

Is there a way to use the official Claude web app with GitHub providers other than GitHub? I’ve put a decent amount of effort into moving away from there, I don’t want to go back.
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Does anyone know what the "Poke" service that this blog mentions is? I'm having trouble finding it on Google.
I'm almost there. I also have tailclscale/SSH/Claude sessions on a VM.

The thing I'm missing is a phone that makes it comfy. I could just SSH feom my standard S23, but what I've got my eye on is one of those foldable things.

Has anyone used one like a laptop? Keyboard on the bottom half, terminal on the top? Does it work decently?

What kind of things people are building that can be almost completely automatically built like this?
Why not just use the mobile app? It has Claude Code built in. Maybe I'm an unsophisticated idiot but it works well for me. Some shortcomings with repo management but other than that, CC mobile seems ... fine
Claude Code mobile app + GitHub app? Works well enough.