How to Create PRs from Your Phone with Claude Code

Your laptop is closed. You’re away from your desk. A bug needs fixing. A PR needs to go out.

Until recently, that was a problem. Claude Code lived in your terminal. Your terminal lived on your laptop. End of story.

That story changed. Claude Code now runs natively inside the Claude app on iOS and Android, and Anthropic’s new Remote Control feature lets you drive a live terminal session directly from your phone. You can kick off a task, watch Claude work, review the diff, and create a PR — all from your pocket.

Here’s exactly how it works.

Two Ways to Code from Your Phone

There are two distinct modes for mobile Claude Code, and it’s worth understanding both before picking your workflow.

1. Claude Code on the Web (Cloud Sessions)

This is the fully cloud-hosted path. Claude Code runs in an Anthropic-managed virtual machine, clones your GitHub repo, does the work, and pushes a branch for you to review. Your laptop never needs to be open.

Access it at claude.ai/code or directly from the Claude iOS and Android apps.

Who can use it: Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users.

What it’s good for:

• Bug fixes and routine tasks on repos you don’t have checked out locally
• Answering questions about code architecture
• Running multiple parallel tasks simultaneously
• Backend changes where Claude can write and run tests

2. Remote Control (Your Machine, Mobile Controller)

This mode keeps Claude Code running on your own machine — your laptop, your environment, your filesystem — but lets you control the session from your phone. Think of it as a native streaming bridge between your terminal and the Claude mobile app.

No port forwarding. No VPN. Automatic reconnection if your laptop sleeps or your network drops.

Who can use it: Currently Claude Max subscribers ($100–$200/month). Coming to Claude Pro soon.

Creating a PR from Your Phone: Step by Step

Option A: Full Cloud Workflow (No Laptop Required)

1. Connect your GitHub account

Open the Claude app on iOS or Android, navigate to the Claude Code tab, and connect your GitHub account. Install the Claude GitHub app on the repositories you want to work with.

2. Start a task

Describe what you want done in plain language:

“Fix the null pointer exception in src/auth/login.ts and add a test for it”

Claude Code will:

• Clone your repo to a secure, isolated VM
• Set up the environment (running your setup script if configured)
• Analyze the code, make changes, and run tests
• Push the result to a new branch

3. Review the diff

When the task completes, you get a notification. Open the session and tap the diff stats indicator (e.g., +12 -1) to open the diff viewer. You’ll see a file list on the left and the actual changes on the right.

If something looks off, add a comment directly on the diff and Claude will iterate. No need to open a draft PR or switch to GitHub just to request a change.

4. Create the PR

Once the diff looks right, tap Create PR. Claude pushes the branch and opens a pull request with a generated summary. Done.

Option B: Terminal-to-Mobile Handoff (Remote Control)

This workflow is ideal when you’ve already been working locally and want to hand off execution to Claude while you step away from your desk.

1. Start a remote session from your terminal

claude --remote "Fix the flaky test in auth.spec.ts"

This creates a new web session and starts the task in Anthropic’s cloud. Your terminal session is now mirrored to claude.ai.

2. Monitor from your phone

Open the Claude app and navigate to your active session. You’ll see Claude’s progress in real time. You can steer it, answer questions, or provide feedback — exactly like you would in the terminal.

3. Run parallel tasks

Each --remote invocation is independent. You can fire off several:

claude --remote "Update the API documentation"
claude --remote "Refactor the logger to use structured output"
claude --remote "Fix the flaky test in auth.spec.ts"

All three run simultaneously. Monitor all of them with /tasks in your terminal or from the Claude app.

4. Teleport back to your terminal (optional)

If you want to continue a web session locally, use:

claude --teleport

This pulls the session — including the full conversation history and the checked-out branch — back into your terminal. Or use /teleport from inside Claude Code to get an interactive picker.

Plan Locally, Execute Remotely

For complex tasks, a powerful pattern is to plan on your machine, then hand off execution to the cloud:

# Step 1: Explore and plan (read-only, no changes)
claude --permission-mode plan

# Step 2: Once you're happy with the plan, execute it remotely
claude --remote "Execute the migration plan in docs/migration-plan.md"

Plan mode limits Claude to reading files only. You get to review the approach before committing to execution. Then you hand it off and let the cloud run it while you move on.

Setting Up Your Environment for Mobile Workflows

Cloud sessions run on a universal Ubuntu 24.04 image with common runtimes pre-installed (Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, Rust, Java, PHP, and more). To customize the environment or install project-specific dependencies, use a setup script.

In the environment settings on claude.ai/code, add a Bash script that runs before Claude Code launches:

#!/bin/bash
npm install
pip install -r requirements.txt

For tools like the gh CLI that aren’t in the default image:

#!/bin/bash
apt update && apt install -y gh

Setup scripts run once per new session. For things that should run on every session start (local and remote), use a SessionStart hook in your repo’s .claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "SessionStart": [
      {
        "matcher": "startup",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "\"$CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR\"/scripts/install_pkgs.sh"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

What to Know Before You Rely on This

GitHub only (for now). Cloud sessions work exclusively with GitHub repositories. GitLab and Bitbucket are not supported yet.

Review before merging. Mobile is convenient, but the diff viewer exists for a reason. Read what Claude changed before creating the PR. One-tap PR creation is fast; a bad merge is slower.

Rate limits are shared. Cloud sessions and remote tasks consume the same rate limits as your regular Claude usage. Running many parallel tasks will burn through them faster.

Sessions persist. Web sessions stay alive even if you close your laptop. You can return to them from any device logged into the same account.

Security. Each cloud session runs in an isolated VM. Git credentials never live inside the sandbox — authentication goes through a scoped proxy. When you’re done, the environment is torn down.

The Mental Model

Think of it this way:

Mobile development used to mean squinting at a tiny terminal emulator and praying your SSH connection held. Claude Code on mobile is a fundamentally different thing: a purpose-built interface for kicking off real engineering work, monitoring it while you’re away, and shipping it from wherever you are.

The workflow isn’t about replacing your desktop setup. It’s about staying productive in the gaps — the commute, the standup queue, the moment you realize at 9pm that something needs to ship tonight.

Sources: Claude Code on the web — Official Docs · Claude Code Mobile: iPhone, Android & SSH — Sealos Blog · Anthropic releases Remote Control for Claude Code — VentureBeat · Claude Code arrives on the web — Tessl