Belay holds the line from your phone to your Mac or PC.
Watch the work. Catch it when it needs a decision.
Show me aroundBuild from source · Mac or Windows host + iPhone
A small harbour. Your computer is home base, in the lit signal station on the quay. A blue line runs from home base to a boat on open water: your phone. At home it runs over your Wi-Fi; away, over your Tailscale tailnet.
Plus and minus zoom in and out, the arrow keys look around, and Escape comes back.
To belay is to hold your climbing partner’s rope. Belay holds the line from your phone to your Mac or Windows PC, so you can watch the work and catch it when it needs a decision.
A small host agent runs on your computer, and the phone app connects straight to it, over your own network or Tailscale.
From your phone you get the live screen, a full keyboard, a terminal, your files (read-only), live system stats and the Agent tab.
The Agent tab drives Claude Code today: every command or edit waits for your answer.
npm run attach joins the same session. Nothing restarts.Other command-line agents run in your computer’s real terminal.
Pair once on your Wi-Fi. It’s direct, with no third-party relay.
npm start in server/ prints the computer’s address and a 6‑digit code.Screen, terminal, files, and your agents.
The screen. Watch it live. Tap, drag, scroll, right-click and type; three-finger swipes switch desktops.
Terminal, files, system. A real shell (run any command-line agent in it), a read-only file browser, and live CPU, memory and disk.
Sessions started at the keyboard. Watch them live (read-only), answer their asks after npm run hooks:install, and take over when they go quiet.
A nudge (optional). The host pings ntfy or your webhook when Claude Code needs a decision.
Desktop client. On another computer, it opens the host’s displays, or each app on a Windows host, as windows.
A controller, on Windows. Your phone, or a paired controller, as a virtual Xbox controller on a Windows host. It needs ViGEm and a development build, and is still in testing; on a Mac you get keyboard and mouse. Gaming guide (opens in a new tab)
Belay ships as source: no installer, no App Store listing, no Android app or Linux host.
Mac. macOS 13 or newer, Apple silicon or Intel. Node.js 20+ and the Xcode command line tools. Grant Screen & System Audio Recording and Accessibility to your terminal app; quit and reopen it.
Windows PC. Windows 10 or 11 and Node.js 20+. The helper builds with the .NET Framework already on your PC. Defender may flag it; allow Node through the firewall on private networks.
On either, build and start the host:
git clone https://github.com/MossLouvan/belaycd belay/servernpm installnpm run build:nativenpm startThen pair: see How it connects.
For the Agent tab, also put Claude Code’s claude CLI on the computer’s PATH, then restart the host.
Development build (recommended). Needs a Mac with Xcode. A free Apple ID works; re-sign every 7 days. Plug the iPhone in, then from the belay folder:
cd appnpm installnpm run iphoneTestFlight. Needs a paid Apple Developer account ($99/yr) and EAS; works from a Mac or a PC.
Expo Go (not recommended). It can’t reach your computer away from home.
Guides, safety notes, and the source.
Found a bug or stuck on setup? Open an issue on GitHub (opens in a new tab)
Open source under the MIT license (opens in a new tab)
All six places, in reading order.
To belay is to hold your climbing partner’s rope. Belay holds the line from your phone to your Mac or Windows PC, so you can watch the work and catch it when it needs a decision.
A small host agent runs on your computer, and the phone app connects straight to it, over your own network or Tailscale.
From your phone you get the live screen, a full keyboard, a terminal, your files (read-only), live system stats and the Agent tab.
The Agent tab drives Claude Code today: every command or edit waits for your answer.
npm run attach joins the same session. Nothing restarts.Other command-line agents run in your computer’s real terminal.
Pair once on your Wi-Fi. It’s direct, with no third-party relay.
npm start in server/ prints the computer’s address and a 6‑digit code.Screen, terminal, files, and your agents.
The screen. Watch it live. Tap, drag, scroll, right-click and type; three-finger swipes switch desktops.
Terminal, files, system. A real shell (run any command-line agent in it), a read-only file browser, and live CPU, memory and disk.
Sessions started at the keyboard. Watch them live (read-only), answer their asks after npm run hooks:install, and take over when they go quiet.
A nudge (optional). The host pings ntfy or your webhook when Claude Code needs a decision.
Desktop client. On another computer, it opens the host’s displays, or each app on a Windows host, as windows.
A controller, on Windows. Your phone, or a paired controller, as a virtual Xbox controller on a Windows host. It needs ViGEm and a development build, and is still in testing; on a Mac you get keyboard and mouse. Gaming guide (opens in a new tab)
Belay ships as source: no installer, no App Store listing, no Android app or Linux host.
Mac. macOS 13 or newer, Apple silicon or Intel. Node.js 20+ and the Xcode command line tools. Grant Screen & System Audio Recording and Accessibility to your terminal app; quit and reopen it.
Windows PC. Windows 10 or 11 and Node.js 20+. The helper builds with the .NET Framework already on your PC. Defender may flag it; allow Node through the firewall on private networks.
On either, build and start the host:
git clone https://github.com/MossLouvan/belaycd belay/servernpm installnpm run build:nativenpm startThen pair: see How it connects.
For the Agent tab, also put Claude Code’s claude CLI on the computer’s PATH, then restart the host.
Development build (recommended). Needs a Mac with Xcode. A free Apple ID works; re-sign every 7 days. Plug the iPhone in, then from the belay folder:
cd appnpm installnpm run iphoneTestFlight. Needs a paid Apple Developer account ($99/yr) and EAS; works from a Mac or a PC.
Expo Go (not recommended). It can’t reach your computer away from home.
Guides, safety notes, and the source.
Found a bug or stuck on setup? Open an issue on GitHub (opens in a new tab)
Open source under the MIT license (opens in a new tab)