📺 Watch the 60-second demo

You kick off Claude Code on a large refactor. You go make coffee. You come back 20 minutes later and discover it's been blocked on a tool approval since minute two.

This happens constantly with AI coding assistants. They're powerful but need a human in the loop. That human doesn't need to be chained to a desk.

MobileCLI streams your terminal to your phone over a network path you control. When your AI assistant asks a question, requests tool access, or finishes a task, you get a push notification. Tap it, read the context, approve or deny, and go back to what you were doing.

The terminal stream is served by a local daemon over WebSocket. Mobile clients pair with auth-v2 QR credentials and then prove possession with a challenge-response handshake before the daemon sends sessions, terminal output, filesystem data, or push-token registration. There is no MobileCLI terminal relay or account system, but push notifications are delivered through Expo's push service, and the daemon should still only be reachable from a trusted LAN, Tailscale network, or protected custom endpoint.

curl -fsSL https://mobilecli.app/install.sh | bash

This macOS/Linux installer downloads the matching GitHub Release archive, verifies it against that release's SHA256SUMS.txt manifest before extraction, and puts the binary on your PATH. Windows users should install from the GitHub Releases .zip or with Cargo. The checksum protects against a corrupted or tampered archive relative to the published release manifest; for stronger supply-chain assurance, inspect the source or build from source with Cargo.

# From crates.io
cargo install mobilecli
# From source
git clone https://github.com/MobileCLI/mobilecli.git
cd mobilecli/cli && cargo install --path .
# Pre-built binaries (Linux x86_64/aarch64, macOS x86_64/arm64)
# → https://github.com/MobileCLI/mobilecli/releases

mobilecli setup

This starts the daemon, saves your connection mode, creates a fresh mobile credential, and displays a QR code. Open the MobileCLI iOS app, tap Scan QR Code, and you're connected. The QR encodes the ws:// or wss:// URL, device id/name metadata, credential id, server id, and one-time pairing token. The desktop stores only a derived verifier, not the raw token.

mobilecli claude # Claude Code
mobilecli codex # OpenAI Codex
mobilecli -n "DB Migration" claude # Named session
mobilecli bash # Plain shell
mobilecli # Your default $SHELL

Your phone now shows the terminal output in real time. Walk away.

MobileCLI has two components: a Rust daemon that runs on your dev machine, and a React Native app on your phone.

Your Machine Your Phone
┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────────────┐
│ mobilecli daemon (Rust) │ WebSocket │ MobileCLI App │
│ ┌────────────────────────────┐ │◄────────────►│ │
│ │ PTY Manager │ │ LAN or │ ┌─ Sessions tab │
│ │ session 1: claude code │ │ Tailscale │ │ Live xterm.js │
│ │ session 2: codex │ │ │ │ Touch keyboard │
│ │ session 3: bash │ │ │ │ Push notifications │
│ └────────────────────────────┘ │ │ │ │
│ ┌────────────────────────────┐ │ │ ├─ Files tab (Pro) │
│ │ File System Bridge │ │ │ │ Browse, edit, search │
│ │ read / write / search │ │ │ │ Create, delete, copy │
│ │ git status integration │ │ │ │ │
│ └────────────────────────────┘ │ │ └─ Config tab │
│ ┌────────────────────────────┐ │ │ Theme, notifications │
│ │ CLI Detection Engine │ │ │ Connection settings │
│ │ claude, codex, gemini, │ │ │ │
│ │ opencode — auto-detected │ │ └───────────────────────────┘
│ └────────────────────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
 │
 Port 9847 (default)
 Trusted network required
 Protect from untrusted clients

The daemon allocates a PTY (pseudo-terminal) for each session, streams the byte output over WebSocket, and relays keyboard input from your phone back to the PTY. The mobile app renders the stream using a bundled xterm.js instance — full ANSI color, cursor positioning, and alternate screen buffer support.

Run multiple AI assistants simultaneously. The Sessions tab shows all active and historical sessions with live status indicators. Long-press to rename or close sessions. Tap the + button to spawn a new CLI directly from your phone — Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, or a plain shell.

Sessions persist across daemon restarts. If you close the app and come back, your sessions are still there with full scrollback history.

The daemon automatically identifies which AI assistant is running in each session and parses its output to detect wait states — tool approval prompts, plan reviews, questions.

When a wait state is detected, the daemon fires a push notification to your phone. You don't need to keep the app open or watch the session — you'll be alerted the moment your attention is needed.

The terminal view is a full xterm.js 5.3 instance running inside a WebView:

• 256-color ANSI rendering with correct cursor positioning
• Scrollable history — scroll up through output, auto-scroll follows new content at the bottom
• Touch keyboard with a toolbar providing Esc, arrow keys (for CLI history), paste, and file attachment buttons
• Responsive resize — terminal dimensions adapt to your phone/tablet screen and send the new size to the PTY so output reflows correctly
• Desktop-safe by default — mobile resizing changes the child PTY dimensions without forcing your desktop terminal window to physically resize (MOBILECLI_DESKTOP_RESIZE_POLICY=mirror restores legacy mirroring)
• Low latency — WebSocket streaming over LAN is typically sub-10ms

The Files tab gives you direct access to your dev machine's filesystem:

• Browse directories with breadcrumb navigation, file sizes, and modification times
• Search files by name across your entire project tree
• Edit files with a built-in editor featuring Save/Undo/Redo, Markdown formatting shortcuts (Bold, Italic, Code, H1, List, Link), and syntax awareness
• Create new files and folders from your phone
• Destructive actions stay opt-in — delete and rename are disabled by default in the daemon config and must be explicitly enabled during setup or config review
• Upload photos, files, or camera captures from your phone to your dev machine — the daemon saves them and returns the desktop path so you can paste it into your terminal
• Git integration — file listings show git status indicators

Notifications are delivered through Expo's push notification service for the current iOS app. The daemon sends a push when:

• An AI CLI enters a wait state (tool approval, plan review, question)
• A session finishes or exits
• A long-running command completes

The push token is registered over the WebSocket connection and then used by the daemon to call Expo's push API. Notification payloads include the notification title/body and session id, not the full terminal stream.

MobileCLI keeps the terminal streaming path self-hosted, but the current iOS push-notification path uses Expo's cloud push service.

• No MobileCLI terminal relay. Your terminal output is served by the daemon over your configured network path.
• No accounts. No sign-up, no email, no OAuth.
• No telemetry. The daemon collects nothing.
• Auth-v2 pairing. Each mobile app stores a pairing token in SecureStore and authenticates with a challenge-response proof before receiving sessions or terminal data. Use mobilecli pair --rotate or mobilecli credentials revoke <credential_id> to replace or revoke mobile access.
• Network isolation still matters. Keep port 9847 on a trusted LAN, Tailnet, firewall allowlist, or protected custom endpoint. Do not expose it directly to the public internet.
• Bounded resources. The daemon limits concurrent connections, channel buffer sizes, and session counts to prevent resource exhaustion.

Your terminal stream does not go through MobileCLI-operated servers. If push notifications are enabled, Expo receives the notification title/body and session id. If you configure Tailscale or a custom remote URL, traffic follows that network provider or endpoint.

For most users, LAN mode is all you need. Open a terminal, scan the QR, done.

mobilecli [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]
Session commands:
 mobilecli Start default shell with streaming
 mobilecli <command> Run any command with streaming
 mobilecli -n "Name" <command> Name the session for easy identification
 mobilecli link [session-id] Attach to an existing session (tmux-like)
Setup and management:
 mobilecli setup Interactive setup wizard (generates QR code)
 mobilecli pair Show QR code for pairing additional devices
 mobilecli pair --rotate Revoke existing mobile credentials and pair again
 mobilecli credentials list List paired mobile credentials without secrets
 mobilecli credentials revoke <id> Revoke one paired mobile credential
 mobilecli status Show daemon status, active sessions, connections
 mobilecli stop Stop the daemon
Daemon lifecycle:
 mobilecli daemon [--port PORT] Start daemon manually (default port: 9847)
 mobilecli autostart install Auto-start daemon on login
 mobilecli autostart uninstall Remove auto-start
 mobilecli autostart status Check auto-start status
Shell integration:
 mobilecli shell-hook install Auto-launch mobilecli in every new terminal
 mobilecli shell-hook uninstall Remove the shell hook
 mobilecli shell-hook status Check shell hook status

The daemon can register itself to start automatically when you log in:

Windows Note: See docs/WINDOWS_SETUP.md for important details about running in user session for visible terminal windows.

To automatically wrap every new terminal session:

mobilecli shell-hook install

This adds a one-liner to your .bashrc, .zshrc, config.fish, or PowerShell $PROFILE. Every new shell you open will be streamed to your phone automatically. Bypass it temporarily:

MOBILECLI_NO_AUTO_LAUNCH=1 bash

The CLI daemon is open source and free forever (MIT license).

The mobile app has a free tier and an optional Pro upgrade:

All config lives in ~/.mobilecli/:

cd cli
cargo build # Debug build
cargo run -- setup # Run setup wizard
RUST_LOG=debug cargo run # Verbose logging
cargo test # Run tests
cargo clippy # Lint

The daemon is ~7,000 lines of async Rust built on tokio. Key modules:

The mobile app is in a separate repository:

cd mobile
npm install
npx expo start # Dev server (press 'i' for iOS simulator)
npx eas-cli build --platform ios --profile production # Production build

Key technologies: Expo Router (navigation), xterm.js 5.3 (terminal rendering in WebView), expo-secure-store (credential storage), RevenueCat (subscriptions).

MobileCLI/
├── cli/ # Rust daemon + CLI wrapper
│ └── src/
│ ├── main.rs # Entry point, clap argument parsing
│ ├── daemon.rs # WebSocket server, PTY management, filesystem ops
│ ├── protocol.rs # Client ↔ Server message types
│ ├── pty_wrapper.rs # PTY spawning and byte-level I/O
│ ├── detection.rs # AI CLI detection + wait-state parsing
│ ├── setup.rs # Interactive setup wizard + QR code
│ ├── shell_hook.rs # Shell auto-launch integration
│ ├── autostart.rs # OS-level daemon autostart
│ ├── link.rs # Session attachment (tmux-style)
│ ├── session.rs # Session metadata structures
│ ├── platform.rs # Cross-platform utilities
│ └── qr.rs # QR code rendering
├── mobile/ # React Native app (separate git repo)
├── website/ # Marketing site (Astro + Tailwind)
├── install.sh # One-line installer script
├── .github/workflows/ # CI, release packaging, Claude Code review
└── docs/ # Architecture docs + screenshots

Contributions are welcome. The CLI daemon is open source under the MIT license.

# Fork, clone, and create a feature branch
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/mobilecli.git
cd mobilecli/cli
# Build and test
cargo build
cargo test
cargo clippy -- -D warnings
# Open a PR against main

Claude Code review is enabled on this repository — your PR will receive automated feedback.

MIT — see LICENSE for details.