The mobile app on your phone
The mobile app is mechabedo on a phone, reached through your beam host. It shows the sessions an installation is running, opens one with the same prompt line the desktop has, starts a new one in a pinned project or any folder, and sends a notification when a session needs you.
It runs beside the desktop window rather than instead of it. The full interface reached through a beam takes over the controls from whoever is at the desk; the mobile app never does, so you can keep working at the Mac and follow along from the phone at the same time.
Drawing the diagram…
This needs an installation already connected to a beam host (Beam).
Pairing a phone
- On the desktop, open Settings > Beam and unfold Phones.
- Press Pair a phone and scan the code with the phone's camera.
- The phone opens the mobile app signed in. The code works once and expires after five minutes.
In the native mechabedo app on an iPhone, press Scan the QR code on its sign-in screen and point it at the same code. It reads only a mechabedo pairing code; the field below the button takes the link under the code instead.
Each installation pairs the phone once. To add another one on the same host, tap it in the native app's menu: the app stays on the installation it is on and opens a sign-in for the new one, where you scan the code from that desktop's Phones. A sign-in screen also lists the installations the phone is still signed in to.
A paired phone stays signed in, however long the app stays closed, until you remove it from the Phones list or sign out in the app's menu. Removing it ends the session it holds at once.
You can also open the host's address on the phone and sign in with the installation's password, or with Sign in with the fleet where the host offers it. On a phone, opening the host lands in the mobile app by itself.
This Mac, under the same list, is for the native mechabedo app while it is developed in the iOS Simulator: Pair signs the app in the booted simulator in to this installation directly, and Local link gives the same one-time link to copy. Neither needs a beam host.
The mobile app reaches only what it shows: sessions, launching one, notifications and its own sign-in. It cannot change settings, open a terminal or read a file's contents, whoever signed it in. Only an admin's phone gets the standing sign-in and the app's database, so a fleet member's phone signs in each time and shows the sessions without the settings stored there (Access).
Installing it
Add it to the home screen: Share > Add to Home Screen in Safari, or Install app in Chrome's menu. The installed app opens straight into the installation you used last, and to its list of instances when that one is not connected. On iOS, notifications only work for the installed app.
On iOS the installed app keeps its own sign-in, apart from Safari's, so add it from the sessions screen you reached by scanning: the app then opens signed in on its first start. If it opens at a sign-in instead, pair it again with a new code and paste the link under the QR into it; with Handoff on, Copy on the Mac puts the link on the iPhone's clipboard. The phone then shows up twice under Phones, once for Safari and once for the installed app, and you can remove the Safari one.
Using it
| Screen | What it does |
|---|---|
| Sessions | Every running session, the ones waiting for you first. A stopped session is folded under Stopped with Resume. Above them, Approvals lists what another of your machines asked of this one, a restart, a key or a preset, with Allow, Allow for 30 min, which also allows that request from that machine for half an hour, and Deny |
| A session | The conversation, questions and permission requests as cards you answer in place, and the prompt line: / commands, @ file mentions, a photo from the camera, queue or interrupt while the agent works, and Stop |
| New session | A project from your pins and recent work, or Browse for any folder, then a harness and a loadout, and Start |
The menu (the three dots on the sessions screen) switches to another installation on the same host, turns notifications on and off, and has Full interface for a tablet that wants the whole app. Going to the full interface takes the controls the way any remote login does; the full app's command bar and its beam panel have Mobile interface to come back.
Notifications
Turn Notifications on in the app's menu and allow them when the phone asks. Each phone chooses what it hears about:
| Event | When |
|---|---|
| Questions | An agent asks you something |
| Permissions | The permission gate holds a tool call for you. On Android the notification has Allow and Deny. Also when another of your machines asks this one for a restart, a key or a preset; that one opens Approvals instead of answering from the notification |
| Finished turns | A turn ends, unless you stopped it or more messages are queued |
| Errors | A turn stops on an error |
A phone gets nothing while the app is open on it. With Quiet while the desktop is in use on, which is the default, it also gets nothing while somebody is working at the desktop. A question or a permission that arrived then still reaches the phone once the desktop has been idle for two minutes, if it has not been answered by then. Settings > Beam > Phones on the desktop lists every paired phone, sends a test, and removes one.
The beam host delivers notifications, so it has to be a release with the mobile app in it; the app's menu says so when it is not. Whoever runs the host is in Running a beam host.