The desktop and phone apps

The web is your default surface; this covers the rest of the family.

The desktop app is the web in its own window

The desktop app is Claude Code in its own application instead of a browser tab — same workspace, same sessions, same connected tools.

It stays put: a browser tab gets closed by accident in a pile of others; the desktop app sits in your dock, so the session you left running is one click away.

It also keeps the work out from under the noise of fifty open tabs, where a long run is easy to lose track of.

Otherwise treat it like the web — everything you learned in Orient-4 holds.

To get it, say "how do I install the desktop app?" and I’ll point you at the download and walk the setup.

The phone app is the same workspace in your pocket

The phone app signs you into the same workspace you use at your desk — your sessions, your files, the work I’ve done, all of it on the small screen.

Its value is reach: a piece of work you started at your desk is open to you from a chairlift, a hallway, the back of a cab.

You open the app, find the session in the list, and you’re looking at exactly where the work got to.

Nothing re-syncs and nothing transfers — the session lives in the workspace, and the phone is just another way in.

To set it up, say "walk me through the phone app" and I’ll take you through signing in.

Watching and steering a cloud session from anywhere

This is the move the phone is built for.

When a long job is running on the cloud — how a session gets there is Appendix-2 — it keeps going whether or not you’re watching, because the cloud holds the work, not your laptop.

So the phone becomes a live view onto running work, plus a way to redirect it.

Three things you can do from the phone or a browser, mid-run:

1. See where it got to

Open the session and read what I’ve done so far — the same progress you’d see at your desk, on the small screen.

A glance between meetings tells you whether the run is on track or needs a steer, without sitting down to it.

2. Send a new instruction without stopping the run

Type a course-correction and I take it on the next step — "actually, leave the pricing section alone for now."

The run doesn’t pause for you to be present; your note lands and the work continues.

3. Give the go-ahead on something I’ve paused for

When the work reaches a step that needs your call, I stop and wait — you reply "yes, go ahead" and I carry on.

None of this runs on the phone itself — the cloud is doing the work, and the phone is sending it your decisions over the network.

Starting fresh work from the phone

You can also kick off new work from the phone, not only steer a running job.

Message what you need, and I take it from there: I decide how to handle it, start the work, and let you know when it’s done — the same as if you’d asked from your desk.

A short ask works best here — a quick draft, a lookup, a record to check — the kind of thing you’d otherwise hold until you were back at your desk.

The instinct stays steer-and-approve: launch the heavy work where it has room — your desktop or the cloud — and use the phone to keep it moving while you’re away.

But when something occurs to you on the move and can’t wait, say "start a new task from here" and tell me what you need, and I’ll run it.

The notification — I pull you back when I need you

You shouldn’t have to keep opening the app to check whether I need something.

So when a cloud task finishes, or hits a point that needs your sign-off, the phone sends you a push notification.

The buzz tells you which of the two it is: the work is done and ready for your read, or it’s stopped at a decision only you can make.

That’s what lets you walk away cleanly: hand off a long job, put the phone in your pocket, and trust the buzz comes when you’re actually needed.

Tap the notification and it opens straight to the session waiting on you.

To switch it on, say "turn on notifications for when a task needs me" and I’ll point you at the setting.

The frontier — full parity from the phone

One edge is still being built, so you know it’s coming, not already in hand.

Today the phone is a strong window onto work running elsewhere; what’s coming is full parity — every file, every connected tool, your email and your data operable from the phone the way they are at your desk, where today you can mostly view them.

When it lands, the small screen runs the heavy work too, and the desk-versus-phone split you keep today stops mattering.

The proof of concept is done, so this is near-term — but it’s Volatility: high, and the live docs in the Sources are the final word on what’s switched on the day you read this.

Until it lands, the steer-and-approve instinct above is exactly right; as parity arrives, that widens, and nothing you’ve learned changes.

The one thing to remember

The desktop app, the phone, and the web are one Claude Code in three places, and your work follows you across all of them.

The phone earns its keep on running work: watch it, redirect it with a sentence, kick off a fresh task when one can’t wait, and let the notification pull you back only when a decision is yours to make.

Next: back to your track — or ask for any module by name

Sources

• Claude Code on the web reference (verify against the live doc): https://code.claude.com/docs/en/claude-code-on-the-web — cloud sessions run on Anthropic-managed infrastructure, persist after the browser or app closes, and are monitorable and steerable from the Claude mobile app; research-preview status noted.
• Claude Code desktop application reference (verify against the live doc): https://code.claude.com/docs/en/desktop — the desktop app as a standalone window onto the same workspace; remote sessions monitorable from the web or the Claude mobile app; sending instructions and starting new tasks from the phone and a push notification when a task finishes or needs approval.