Start a Coding Agent on Your Server from Your Phone | YoloShell
Frequently asked questions
- Where do the coding agents actually run?
- On the remote machine running Herdr. They must be installed there — YoloShell is the iOS client that drives them, not the runtime.
- What do I need to start one?
- SSH access to a remote machine running Herdr, with the agent installed on that machine.
- Can I just watch an agent work without interfering?
- Yes. Observe in read-only mode, and take control when you need to.
- Does YoloShell also work without Herdr?
- Yes. SSH, Mosh, tmux and VNC are all there independently — Herdr adds the workspace and agent panel on top.
The short answer
The premise is worth stating plainly, because it is easy to misread: the agents run on the remote machine, not on your phone.
YoloShell's Herdr panel lets you create workspaces and panes, start a supported coding agent such as Claude Code or Codex inside an existing shell pane, follow its status, and continue the work in that terminal.
What you need
- SSH access to a remote machine running Herdr
- The agent installed on that machine
Both are explicit prerequisites, because they are what the architecture actually requires — the agent has access to the repository, the toolchain and the credentials, so that is where it belongs.
Observe or take control
This is the part that makes it usable rather than a novelty. You can observe in read-only mode and take control when you need to.
Reading an agent's output while it works is how you stay oriented in a long task. Being able to interject without tearing down the session is what keeps that observation useful.
Workspaces, tabs, panes and agents
The panel switches workspaces, tabs, panes and agents from one compact view — so on a phone screen the question is not "which terminal am I in" but "which of these is the one I need".
Without Herdr, YoloShell still has SSH, Mosh, tmux and VNC. Herdr adds the workspace and agent layer on top of a client that stands on its own.