claude code without a laptop
I build Yado, an iOS app that runs Claude Code sessions in the cloud — so nothing of yours has to be running. No laptop, no VPS, no server. This page is the honest version of how that works, what it costs, and when you’d be better off with something else.
why I built it
My time in front of a laptop is scarce. I’m married, father of one (soon two), and I’m building apps solo while competing with funded startups — speed is my only edge. I had a choice: give up on my dreams, or sacrifice my family time. So I built the thing that means I don’t have to give up either.
Before Yado I lived the DIY version: Termius plus a self-deployed Ubuntu box I’d SSH into from my phone. It worked, barely — a pain, terminal only, missing plenty of features. I chose that painful setup for months to protect my evenings. Yado is the thing I actually wanted.
You know how people pick up their phone to reply to a text message during a family event? I send a quick prompt instead, usually just approving a plan my skill came up with, then lock my phone and pick it up an hour later.
how it works
- Sign in with GitHub. Yado starts a cloud container for you — a real Linux box with your repos cloned into it.
- Sign in with Claude once. It’s your subscription: Anthropic bills your tokens, I don’t. Yado is free to use.
- Work in a chat UI built for the phone, or open a full-blown terminal — the real Claude Code CLI, same session, switch mid-run.
- It keeps going when you lock your phone. A push finds you when it’s shipped.
- Preview your changes live — the app you just built opens running on your phone.
- Connect MCPs in two taps — Sentry, Linear, Notion — and Claude uses them mid-task.
what it costs
The free tier is real: chat and terminal (both full), one session, unlimited prompts, push notifications, MCP. Pro is $9.99/month (or $69.99/year) and adds voice and parallel sessions. Pay to go faster, not to unlock the engine.
the honest part
- Yes, it’s a wrapper around Claude Code. The value is the setup you never do and the mobile-specific work: chat mode, sessions, push, voice, live preview.
- You bring your own Claude subscription (Pro or Max) — that’s a real prerequisite.
- iOS only, as of July 2026.
- Parallel sessions cap at two (Pro).
- Security, plainly: your code lives in an ephemeral per-user container while you work, and conversations are encrypted at rest — but it runs on my infrastructure, so in principle I could access it. The mitigations: containers clear out often, everything sensitive is encrypted, your Claude account stays yours (Anthropic bills you directly; I store only the login token, encrypted), and you can delete everything. Details in the privacy policy.
- Why free is sustainable: the expensive part — AI tokens — rides your own Claude subscription, and idle containers suspend. My marginal cost per free user is close to zero, so the free tier isn’t a trap waiting to close.
- If your laptop is on anyway, a free mirror like Happy or Anthropic’s own Remote Control might be all you need. I compare the real options, dated and sourced, in 7 ways to run Claude Code from your phone.