There are at least six ways to send work to a Claude Code or Codex session from a phone in 2026. Four of them mirror your own terminal to your own device. One relays it through a chat app. One gives the agent a room that other people can enter. They differ on who can use them, what happens when your laptop sleeps, and whether anyone approves the risky steps.
This is a comparison, not a ranking. The right answer depends on whether “from your phone” means you on the train, or your team on theirs.
The six options
Claude Code Remote Control (Anthropic). The official feature, in research preview since February 2026. Run claude remote-control and the claude.ai web app or the Claude mobile app becomes a window onto that local session. Outbound HTTPS only, no open ports. Single user, one device per session, terminal must stay open. Started with Max plans and has been widening.
Happy. Open-source remote control for Claude Code and Codex. You scan a QR code and your phone (iOS, Android or web) drives the terminal session. Users have compared it favourably with CodeRemote, YoloCode, Omnara, Claudia, Conductor and Tonkotsu, mostly because it is open source and auditable with no telemetry.
Omnara. A mobile app on the App Store and Google Play for monitoring, steering and approving live Claude Code and Codex sessions on your laptop. The approval step is the distinctive part: it puts a yes/no in your pocket for your own agent.
Claude Code Dispatch. A relay that lets you control your local Claude Code from a messaging app such as Telegram. What you send from the chat runs on your computer with your local files and plugins.
Forge Remote, Mobile IDE for Claude Code and similar. Native apps that connect to a desktop session and take control from the phone. Same shape as Happy with different trade-offs in polish and openness.
An agent room (muti). The agent stays on your machine and gets a room. You, and anyone you invite, message it from a browser on any device. Requests queue while the machine is offline, every tool call streams into the room, and the owner approves dangerous actions. Nothing to install for guests.
Where the agent runs, and who can talk to it. Most phone tools sit in the “only you, your machine” quadrant; a room moves to “people you invite, your machine”.
Comparison
Pick by scenario
You want to keep working on your own task from the couch. Remote Control. It is official, needs nothing else, and shows the session as it is.
You want to audit every line of the remote tool. Happy. Open source, no telemetry, QR pairing.
You want a yes/no button for your own agent’s risky steps. Omnara, or a room. Omnara does it for you alone; a room does it for everyone who asks.
You live in Telegram. Dispatch, with the caveat that chat membership is your permission model.
Someone else needs to use your agent. A room. This is the one scenario the mirroring tools cannot cover, because they mirror your session to your device. See how to share Claude Code without sharing your laptop.
Your laptop will be asleep when the request arrives. A room. The inbox holds the request and the daemon, installed as a service, runs it on wake.
What none of them change
Every option in this list keeps the agent on your machine, unlike hosted alternatives such as Claude Code on the web or Codex cloud, which run in a provider’s sandbox with a copy of your repositories. If your question is really about where the agent should live, read local-first agents vs hosted agents.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use Remote Control and a room at the same time? Yes. One is a terminal session you drive; the other is a background daemon that receives work. Both are outbound-only and do not conflict.
Do any of these need an open port or a tunnel? No. All of them use outbound connections from your machine to a relay.
Which one is cheapest? Happy and Dispatch are free; muti is free during its beta; Remote Control comes with eligible Claude plans; Omnara and the native apps have paid tiers. In every case you still pay your Claude Code or Codex subscription.
Which works with Codex as well as Claude Code? Happy, Omnara, Forge Remote and muti rooms. Remote Control and Dispatch are Claude Code features.
If “from your phone” means your team’s phones too, give your agent a room.
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