Claude Code Gets Remote Control - Start a Task in Your Terminal, Finish It From Your Phone

Anthropic has shipped Remote Control for Claude Code, a feature that lets you start a coding session in your terminal and pick it up from your phone, tablet, or any browser while you walk the dog or sit in a meeting. The session keeps running on your local machine - your filesystem, MCP servers, tools, and project configuration all stay available. The web and mobile interfaces are just a window into that local process.

How It Works

The setup is deliberately minimal. Navigate to your project directory, run claude remote-control, and the terminal displays a session URL and a QR code. Scan the code with your phone, or open the URL on any device, and you are controlling the same session that has access to your entire local environment.

The conversation stays in sync across all connected devices. You can send messages from your terminal, then from your phone, then from a browser on a different computer - the session does not care where the input comes from. If your laptop goes to sleep or your Wi-Fi drops, the session reconnects automatically when connectivity returns. A sustained outage beyond roughly 10 minutes will timeout the session, at which point you run claude remote-control again.

The security model

No inbound ports are opened on your machine. Claude Code makes outbound HTTPS requests only, registering with the Anthropic API and polling for work. When you connect from another device, the server routes messages between the web or mobile client and your local session over a streaming connection. All traffic travels through the Anthropic API over TLS, using multiple short-lived credentials scoped to a single purpose and expiring independently.

This is the same transport security as any standard Claude Code session. The only new attack surface is the session URL itself - anyone with that URL can interact with your local session, so treat it like a password.

What It Is Not

Remote Control is not Claude Code on the web, which launched in October 2025 and runs sessions on Anthropic-managed cloud infrastructure. That distinction matters:

Remote Control is for the developer who is mid-task, has a complex local environment with MCP servers and custom tooling configured, and wants to step away from their desk without losing flow. Claude Code on the web is for kicking off a task from a hotel room on a machine where nothing is installed.

The Competitive Picture

Claude Code is not the first AI coding tool to reach for mobile. Cursor shipped a third-party iOS companion app in January 2026 that relays prompts from an iPhone to a Mac running the Cursor IDE. GitHub Copilot's coding agent has been assignable from GitHub Mobile since June 2025 - but that runs entirely in GitHub's cloud via Actions, not on your local machine.

Claude Code's differentiator is clear: local execution with the full environment. No other tool lets you control a local coding agent from your phone while preserving access to your filesystem, MCP servers, and project configuration. Whether that matters more than Copilot's zero-setup cloud execution depends entirely on how complex your local environment is.

The Market Context

The timing is not subtle. Claude Code hit $1 billion in annualized revenue in roughly six months - faster than ChatGPT managed - and reportedly reached $2.5 billion annualized by February 2026. Anthropic claims 54% of the enterprise coding market. The company acquired Bun, the JavaScript runtime, specifically to accelerate Claude Code's performance.

Remote Control shipped the same day as Anthropic's larger Claude Cowork enterprise plugins event, which drew the bulk of press attention. But for individual developers on Pro and Max plans, this is the more consequential feature. The plugins are about enterprise workflows. Remote Control is about never having to choose between going outside and keeping your agent working.

"Start local sessions from the terminal, then continue them from your phone. Take a walk, see the sun, walk your dog without losing your flow."

• Noah Zweben, Product Manager for Claude Code

What They Left Out

The limitations are real but unsurprising for a research preview. One remote session at a time per Claude Code instance. The terminal must stay open - close it and the session dies. And the feature is gated to Max users first ($100-$200/month), with Pro ($20/month) coming "soon" on an unspecified timeline.

There is also a known bug: users on personal Pro and Max accounts are seeing a "Contact your administrator" error when running claude remote-control, which is confusing since individual subscribers do not have an administrator. Anthropic has acknowledged the issue on GitHub.

The Team and Enterprise exclusion is notable. The developers most likely to have complex local environments with custom MCP servers and multi-tool configurations - the exact use case Remote Control is built for - are often on Team or Enterprise plans. Anthropic has not said when or whether those tiers will get access.

Remote Control is available now in Claude Code v2.1.51 for Max subscribers, with Pro access rolling out soon. Run claude remote-control from your project directory, scan the QR code, and go take that walk. Your agent will still be there when you get back.

Sources:

• Claude Code - Remote Control Documentation
• Noah Zweben on X - Remote Control Announcement
• Claude AI on X - Research Preview Availability
• Anthropic - Claude Code Reaches $1B Milestone
• GitHub Issue #28098 - Misleading Error Message