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Learn how to use Remoto to control your terminal from your phone.

How it works

Remoto creates a secure tunnel between your terminal and your phone. When you run the CLI, it spawns a local shell session and connects to our relay server via WebSocket.

Scanning the QR code opens a web-based terminal on your phone that connects to the same session. Everything you type on your phone is sent to your local terminal, and all output is streamed back in real-time.

Sessions expire after 1 hour
Up to 5 concurrent sessions on free plan
Sensitive environment variables are filtered out

Getting started

1

Install globally

$ npm install -g remotosh
2

Start a session

$ remoto
3

Scan the QR code with your phone

CLI commands

The remoto CLI supports the following commands:

remoto

Start a new terminal session and display the QR code

remoto status

Check if you're logged in

remoto doctor

Run diagnostics to check Node.js version, network connectivity, and node-pty

remoto open

Open the Remoto dashboard in your browser

remoto logout

Clear saved authentication token

remoto help

Show all available commands

Troubleshooting

posix_spawnp failed or spawn-helper errors

This usually means node-pty needs to be rebuilt for your system. Install globally to fix:

npm install -g remotosh

Session limit reached

Free accounts can have up to 5 concurrent sessions. End existing sessions from the dashboard or press Ctrl+C in active terminal sessions.

Run diagnostics

Use the doctor command to check your setup:

remoto doctor

Security

Remoto is designed with security in mind:

  • Sessions require two tokens: one from authentication, one from session creation
  • Sensitive environment variables (API keys, secrets, tokens) are automatically filtered
  • All connections use TLS encryption
  • Sessions expire automatically after 1 hour
  • Terminal output is streamed but not stored on our servers