Guide
How to use Claude Code from your phone
Claude Code is a terminal program, and phones are bad terminals. Still, there are good ways to start a task, answer an agent's question or check its progress from your pocket. Which one fits depends on where you want Claude to run.
First: where does Claude run?
The phone is only a window. The real question is which machine runs Claude Code while you're away from your desk:
- your own computer, which then has to stay on;
- Anthropic's cloud;
- a server of your own.
1. Remote Control: your computer, the Claude app
Anthropic's Remote Control connects claude.ai/code or the Claude app for iOS and Android to a Claude Code session running on your machine. Claude keeps running locally the whole time, with your files, tools and MCP servers. Per Anthropic's docs, it is available on Pro, Max, Ultra, Team and Enterprise plans (not with API keys), and your computer has to stay on with the claude process running.
Good for: stepping away from a session you started at your desk.
2. Cloud sessions: Anthropic's machines, the Claude app
Claude Code on the web runs a session in an isolated, Anthropic-managed virtual machine. You can start one from the Code tab in the Claude app, with nothing running at home. Per the docs, it is available on Pro, Max, Ultra and Team plans, and for Enterprise users with the right seats.
Good for: tasks on a repository, with no machine of your own to keep on.
3. An SSH app and tmux: your server, a raw terminal
If Claude Code already runs on a server inside tmux, any SSH app on the phone can attach to it. You get the real terminal, exactly as on a desktop. The cost is the keyboard: Ctrl, Escape, Tab and arrows are fiddly on a touch screen, scrolling fights with tmux, and you manage keys for the app.
Good for: people who already live in SSH.
4. A dashboard in the phone's browser: AgentKennel
AgentKennel is a self-hosted, open-source dashboard for Claude Code terminals on your own server. Each agent is the real claude terminal in tmux, shown in a browser tab, and the dashboard is built to work on a phone:
- Swipe to scroll through the terminal; press and hold to select text.
- A key bar above the keyboard with Ctrl+C, Tab, the arrows and Enter.
- Every terminal in one list, by name, with search. Pick one, look, type, put the phone away.
- Files from the phone: 📎 File uploads a photo or document to the server and types its path into the terminal.
- Nothing stops when you close the tab. The agents keep running on the server.
It is plain HTTPS with a password, so no app to install and no SSH keys on the phone. The same terminals are also reachable from Telegram, with voice notes and Claude's questions as buttons: see how to use Claude Code in Telegram.
Good for: several long-running agents on a server you control, checked from anywhere.
Which one to pick
- One session, your laptop stays on: Remote Control. It is official and needs no setup beyond the Claude app.
- No machine of your own: cloud sessions in the Claude app.
- A server, and you love terminals: SSH app plus tmux.
- A server, several agents, a phone-sized interface: AgentKennel. The comparison with Remote Control goes through the differences in detail.
Setting up AgentKennel for your phone
Install it on a VPS (one command, or a script you paste while creating the server; see the install options). It gets HTTPS by itself on a free sslip.io name, so the address works in any phone browser. Sign in, press ＋ New, sign in to Claude once, and add the dashboard to your home screen if you like. From then on, checking on an agent is opening a tab.