rta — Remote tmux Access

A single-binary Go CLI that discovers tmux sessions running Claude Code and lets you attach from your phone over SSH.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Go 1.24+ (for building from source)
• tmux installed on the host machine
• An SSH client on your phone (Terminus, Blink Shell, Prompt 3)

Install

# Clone and build
git clone <repo-url>
cd remote-tmux-access
make build

# Copy to your PATH
cp rta /usr/local/bin/

# Or install directly via Go
go install .

Quick Setup

1. Enable SSH on your Mac

rta setup ssh

This checks whether Remote Login is enabled and walks you through fixing anything that's off. It's read-only — it won't change your system config, just tells you what to do.

2. Auto-launch on SSH login

rta setup

This adds a small block to your .zshrc that runs rta automatically when you SSH in. Local terminal sessions are unaffected. To undo:

rta setup --undo

3. Connect from your phone

Open Terminus (or any SSH app) on your iPhone and SSH into your Mac:

ssh youruser@your-mac-ip

rta launches automatically and shows your tmux sessions:

  Claude Code Sessions
  > webapp        ~/projects/webapp
    api-server    ~/projects/api

  Other tmux Sessions
    scratch       ~/tmp

  [Enter] attach  [r] refresh  [q] quit

Select a session and press Enter — you're in.

Usage

Interactive mode (default)

rta

Launches the TUI session picker. If only one Claude Code session exists, it attaches directly — no menu needed.

Attach by name

rta attach webapp        # exact or substring match
rta attach web           # matches "webapp"

List sessions

rta status               # table output
rta status --json        # JSON output

Example output:

SESSION      CLAUDE  DIR                  ATTACHED
webapp       *       ~/projects/webapp    yes
api-server   *       ~/projects/api
scratch              ~/tmp

All commands

rta                          Launch TUI (or auto-attach if one Claude session)
rta attach <name>            Attach by name (substring match)
rta status                   List sessions (one per line)
rta status --json            List sessions as JSON
rta setup                    Add auto-launch to shell profile
rta setup --undo             Remove auto-launch
rta setup ssh                Check SSH server configuration

How it works

1. Queries tmux list-sessions to find all sessions
2. For each session, gets the pane PIDs via tmux list-panes
3. Walks the process tree (single ps call) looking for claude descendants
4. Presents sessions in a Bubble Tea TUI, sorted by Claude detection
5. On selection, hands terminal control to tmux attach-session via syscall.Exec

Detaching (Ctrl-b d) returns you to the rta menu. The tmux session keeps running.

Remote access

rta assumes direct network access (LAN, VPN, or Tailscale). For access over the public internet, layer one of:

• Tailscale — zero-config mesh VPN, works great with iOS
• Cloudflare Tunnel — expose SSH without opening ports
• SSH port forwarding — ssh -R through a jump host