Setup

1. 01

   Put both devices on the same tailnet

   Tailscale is how your phone reaches your Mac without exposing anything to the internet. It is free for personal use and takes about three minutes.

   • Install Tailscale on your Mac and sign in.
   • Install Tailscale on your phone and sign in with the same account.
   • Open the Tailscale app on either device and confirm both machines are listed.

   Both devices appear in your tailnet, each with an address starting 100.

2. 02

   Install the PRCHD host on your Mac

   The host is the part that does the work: it runs the agents and owns your files, git, and processes. It lives in your menubar.

   • Download the DMG and drag PRCHD to your Applications folder.
   • Launch it. A beacon appears in your menubar.
   • Click the beacon to open the popover.

   Dragging to Applications matters — an app left inside the mounted DMG can check for updates but cannot install them.

   The menubar beacon is green and the popover reads "All quiet".

3. 03

   Tell PRCHD its tailnet address

   The host does not guess its own address — you give it one. This is the address the pairing QR hands your phone, and the interface the phone-facing listener binds to. Both values come straight from Tailscale.

   • Open the dashboard from the popover, then Settings → Network.
   • Set Tailnet name to your Mac’s MagicDNS name — something like macbook.tailnet.ts.net.
   • Set Tailnet IPv4 to the same machine’s 100. address, like 100.64.0.1.
   • Both are in the Tailscale menubar app under this device, or from tailscale status in a terminal.

   Fill in both, then quit PRCHD from the tray and relaunch. The IPv4 is what the phone-facing listener actually binds to, and it only picks up a change on restart — with the name set but the address blank, the QR advertises a host nothing is listening on and the phone fails to connect with no visible reason why.

   The Network card’s “Reachable at” row shows your tailnet address rather than 127.0.0.1.

4. 04

   Sign in to your coding agent

   PRCHD drives Claude Code and Codex; it does not replace them or bundle its own. Whichever you already use, sign in to it on that Mac.

   • Open the PRCHD dashboard from the popover.
   • Find your backend under its sign-in row.
   • If it reads "needs login", follow it to sign in, then return.

   At least one backend reads ready.

5. 05

   Pair your phone

   Pairing is a one-time exchange between two devices you own. It is the only unauthenticated step, and it is what bootstraps the token every later call requires.

   • In the dashboard, choose Show QR.
   • Open PRCHD on your phone and point it at the code.
   • Attach a project on the Mac, then create your first workspace from the phone.

   Your Mac appears in the phone’s host list with a green beacon.

What pairing actually does

The QR carries a one-time token, your Mac's tailnet address, and its public key. Your phone generates its own keypair, and the exchange issues a device token that is stored in the device keychain and required on every call afterwards. You can revoke any paired device from the host at any time.

How the security model works →

If something is not working

Still stuck? Email hello@prchd.app and describe which step's check failed.