Remote control from your phone

With remote control you drive OpenCognit from your phone's browser: you see every running session, follow the output live, write to the agents and give approvals. The agents keep running on your computer — the phone is just the remote.

Requirement: Tailscale

OpenCognit is never reachable on your Wi-Fi or the internet. The connection runs through Tailscale, a private network between your devices:

1. Install Tailscale on your PC and on your phone and sign in with the same account.
2. Done — both devices are now in your tailnet.

Without Tailscale, remote control only listens on your own computer (for trying it out).

Turning it on and pairing

1. Turn on Settings → Notifications → Remote control from your phone.
2. Below it you see “Reachable in your tailnet at …” and a QR code.
3. Scan the QR code with your phone camera — the page opens and the phone is paired.
4. Tip: add the page to your home screen, then it opens like an app.

If you set up Tailscale later, tap Search again in the settings.

On the phone

At the bottom you switch between five areas:

• Home: at the top, whether the phone is connected, and the gear for settings. Below, a notice about open approvals, the Task for the orchestrator field and, under Running now, every agent — whoever needs you is listed first. Further down the workspaces: tap a name to open the workspace, + starts a new session (pick the CLI) — in “local only” workspaces just the local Codex or the shell. At the very bottom you reach the neurons: each workspace a neuron, impulses run where agents work.
• Orchestrator (the OpenCognit mark): the conversation with the orchestrator. Pick the workspace at the top, write the task at the bottom.
• Agents: every session with its state and context usage. Tap one to open it: the terminal with the history so far and everything new live, bars for context and quota, approvals of that session, the input at the bottom (like typing, with Enter at the end) and extra keys your phone keyboard lacks: Esc, Tab, arrows, Enter, Ctrl+C. … at the top right interrupts the agent.
• Tasks: the board per workspace — add tasks and start them as a thread (Claude, Kimi or Hermes), below the routines and night tasks coming up next.
• Inbox: approvals (deny/approve), agents' questions with a direct reply, and finished agents. The number on the icon shows how much is waiting for you.

Settings on the phone

The gear on Home opens this phone's settings:

• Connection: which computer you are connected to. Sign out – disconnect phone invalidates the pairing — like New token on the PC: every paired phone has to scan the QR code again.
• Language: Automatic (like the phone), Deutsch or English.
• Appearance: Automatic (like OpenCognit on your computer), Gold or Neutral.
• About: this handbook and the version.

Guardrails, security and accounts deliberately can't be changed on the phone — only on your computer.

Terminal at phone width

When you open a session on the phone, OpenCognit resizes its terminal to the phone — the CLI redraws at phone width, so nothing needs sideways scrolling. Meanwhile the PC shows “Open on phone”. When you leave the session on the phone (or put it away), the PC gets its size back — at the latest after a minute without a sign of life.

Workspace on the phone

Tap a workspace's name on Home. At the top you pick one of three tabs — like the side panel on the PC:

• Agents: this workspace's sessions and New session.
• Changes: every changed file (project and worktrees). Tap one to see the diff, wrapped and colored. Commit with a message, or Hand back to agent: pick an agent, write what it should change.
• Orchestrator: the conversation with this workspace's orchestrator — follow along and give new tasks.

When you decide an approval on the phone, the banner on the PC disappears too, and the check log records that the decision came from the phone.

Everything you type on the phone goes through the same guardrails as on the PC.

Security

• Listens only on your computer's Tailscale address (or locally only) — never on Wi-Fi or the internet.
• The QR code contains a random token (256 bits). The phone page remembers it and removes it from the address bar; it ends up in no log. Treat the QR code like a password.
• New token in the settings disconnects every paired phone; they have to scan again.
• After ten wrong attempts per minute, OpenCognit blocks the device for a while.
• Off by default. Turning it off ends every connection at once.

Limits

• OpenCognit has to run on the computer, and the computer has to be on.
• Short notices on your phone even when the page is closed come through ntfy (Settings → Notifications → To your phone).