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Tonis Tiganik--6 min read

Control Your Claude Code Agents From Your Phone

ClawTab Remote lets you monitor, control, and respond to your Claude Code agents from anywhere. Live log streaming, push notifications, and agent question detection - all from your phone.

Control Your Claude Code Agents From Your Phone

The Problem: Agents Need Attention While You're Away

You kick off a Claude Code agent on a big refactoring task, grab coffee, and come back 20 minutes later to find it's been waiting for your input since minute three. Sound familiar?

AI coding agents are powerful, but they're not fully autonomous. They ask clarifying questions, hit permission prompts, encounter errors that need human judgment. If you're not at your desk watching the terminal, that work stalls.

ClawTab Remote solves this. It connects your phone directly to your running agents, so you can respond to questions, monitor progress, and manage jobs from anywhere.

How Remote Access Works

The architecture is simple: your ClawTab desktop app maintains a persistent WebSocket connection to a relay server. Your phone connects to the same relay. Messages flow between them in real time.

All communication is encrypted over TLS. The relay server never stores your agent output or code - it just passes messages through. Three separate token types (device, session, relay) ensure that even if one is compromised, an attacker can't impersonate your device.

The flow looks like this:

  • Phone connects to relay via WebSocket + TLS
  • Relay authenticates and routes messages
  • Desktop sends live job updates, log lines, and agent questions

Latency is typically under 100ms. Log lines stream as they're written, not in batches.

ClawTab Remote panel showing connected status
The Remote panel in ClawTab desktop showing connection status

Setting It Up

Getting started takes about 30 seconds:

  1. Open ClawTab on your Mac and go to the Remote tab
  2. Sign in with your ClawTab account
  3. Open remote.clawtab.cc on your phone (or install the app)
  4. Sign in with the same account

That's it. Your devices pair automatically. The connection persists across app restarts and reconnects if your network drops.

The Mobile Experience

The mobile app gives you a full view of your running jobs. You see every job's status, type, and last activity at a glance. Tap into any job to see its live log output streaming in real time.

You can start new jobs, stop running ones, and see the full history of completed runs. The interface is built with React Native, so it feels native on both iOS and Android.

Agent Question Detection

This is the killer feature. When Claude Code asks a question in the terminal - whether it's asking for clarification, requesting permission, or presenting options - ClawTab detects it automatically.

The question appears as a tappable card on your phone. You can type a response, pick from suggested answers, or dismiss it. Your reply goes straight back to the agent's stdin, and it continues working.

No more stalled agents waiting for input you didn't know they needed. You get a push notification the moment a question is detected, so you can respond in seconds even if you're away from your desk.

Agent question detection with option buttons on mobile
Questions from Claude Code agents appear as notification cards with actionable option buttons

Push Notifications

ClawTab Remote sends push notifications for the events that matter:

  • Job completed - your agent finished its task
  • Job failed - something went wrong and needs attention
  • Agent question - Claude is waiting for your input

Notifications are delivered through Apple Push Notification service (APNs) on iOS and web push on browsers. They work even when the app is in the background or your phone is locked.

Security

Remote access to your development environment demands serious security. Here's how ClawTab handles it:

  • TLS everywhere - all WebSocket connections use TLS. No plaintext.
  • Three token types - device tokens, session tokens, and relay tokens are separate. Compromising one doesn't give access to the others.
  • Stolen token detection - if a token is used from an unexpected context, the session is invalidated.
  • No storage on relay - the relay server passes messages through but never persists your code, logs, or agent output.
  • Open source - the relay server code is open source. You can audit every line.

Self-Hosting the Relay

If you want full control, you can run your own relay server. It's a standalone Rust binary built with Axum and requires minimal configuration:

  • A PostgreSQL database for device registration
  • A TLS certificate (or put it behind a reverse proxy)
  • A handful of environment variables

The relay binary is small, fast, and runs well on a $5/month VPS. Docker images and compose files are included in the repository under public/etc/.


Media

Answering agent questions remotely from your phone
Answering agent questions remotely from your phone

Frequently Asked Questions

ClawTab Remote connects your phone to your desktop ClawTab app through a relay server using WebSocket connections over TLS. Your desktop sends live job updates, log output, and agent questions to the relay, which forwards them to your phone in real time. You can respond to agent questions, start/stop jobs, and monitor everything from the mobile interface.

Yes. All connections use TLS encryption. The system uses three separate token types (device, session, and relay) so compromising one doesn't expose the others. The relay server never stores your code or agent output - it only passes messages through. Stolen token detection automatically invalidates suspicious sessions. The relay server is also open source so you can audit the code.

Yes. ClawTab Remote lets you start, stop, and monitor Claude Code agent jobs directly from your phone. You can see live log streaming, respond to agent questions, and manage your full job queue. The mobile app works on iOS, Android, and in any mobile browser at remote.clawtab.cc.

ClawTab automatically detects when Claude Code asks a question in the terminal. The question appears as a push notification on your phone and as a tappable card in the mobile app. You can type a response or pick from suggestions, and your answer is sent directly back to the agent's input. The agent then continues working without delay.

Yes. The relay is a standalone Rust binary that you can run on your own server. It needs a PostgreSQL database and a TLS certificate (or a reverse proxy). Docker images and compose files are included in the repository. It runs efficiently on minimal hardware.

ClawTab Remote is included with ClawTab. The hosted relay at remote.clawtab.cc is available for registered users. You can also self-host the relay server at no cost since it's open source.

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