Remote Control

This morning I typed four words into the terminal on my laptop, stood up, and walked away from my desk. From my phone, I kept right on working. Same projects, same tools, same machine sitting back in the office in the woods.

The feature underneath this is called Remote Control, and it ships with Claude Code, the AI tool I run my work through. You start it in a project folder and it prints a link (or a QR code) that connects your phone to that folder on your own computer. Not a copy in some data center somewhere. Your actual machine, with everything set up the way you have it.

But there was a problem when I first tried it. If I asked Claude to start the remote session for me, the session died the moment our conversation ended. It was like a store that closes the second the manager goes home. The thing I wanted was a store that stays open.

The fix is a tool older than I am, or close to it, called tmux. It keeps a program running in the background with its own lifetime, so it doesn't care that the conversation that started it is over. Once I figured that out, I didn't want to re-figure it out every time. So I taught it to Claude once, as what's called a skill.

A skill is humbling in its simplicity. It's a folder with two things in it: a markdown file of instructions written in plain English, and a small script for the fiddly parts. The instructions read like what you'd leave for a new hire — here's what this job is, here's why we do it this way, here's the three things that will trip you up. When I say "start a remote session," Claude finds that folder, reads the instructions, runs the script, and hands me the link for my phone. Four words in, and thirty seconds later my laptop takes instructions from my pocket.

What gets me is that the hard part wasn't code. The hard part was learning the lesson once — the store needs to stay open after the manager leaves — and then writing it down clearly enough that I never have to learn it again. That's not programming. That's the same thing my mom taught me homeschooling at the kitchen table: learning to learn, and writing it down for the next person. The next person just happens to be a machine now.

I put the whole skill on GitHub if you want it: github.com/Midnight-Farmer/remote-session-skill. Two files. Read the instructions file even if you never use the thing — I think seeing how plain it is changes how you think about what these tools can do for your own work.

If you try it, or if you've been wondering how any of this AI stuff actually fits into a normal working day, shoot me a text or an email. I'd love to talk about it. Thanks for reading. I appreciate you.