Phones and iPads

The web UI works in a phone’s or tablet’s browser as it does on a desk, laid out for the narrower screen. Two things are worth doing differently on one: install it, and send long work in the background.

Install it

On an iPhone or iPad, open the chat in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, Chrome offers to install it, and the web UI shows an Install button once you have a conversation going.

Installed, it opens full screen and fits around the notch and the home indicator. If it is opened with no network, it shows its own “Could not reach the server” rather than the browser’s error page. A new deploy is picked up the next time it opens.

Notifications when a run is waiting on you

A run that needs an approval, or that asks you a question, stops until someone answers, and an approval that is not answered by its deadline is denied. The web UI can send a notification when that happens, even with the app closed:

1. Install it (above). On an iPhone or iPad this is required: Safari delivers notifications only to an app on the Home Screen.
2. Open the installed app. Once you have a conversation, a line above the message box offers Turn on. Tap it, and allow notifications when the system asks.

Tapping a notification opens the thread that is waiting. The notification names the kind of wait and, for an approval, the tool and how long is left. It never contains the call’s arguments or the question itself, because it travels through Apple’s, Google’s or Mozilla’s servers to reach you. Those you read in the app, where you decide.

To stop them, turn notifications off for the app in the system’s settings. The harness forgets the device the next time it tries to reach it.

The deployment has to opt in

Notifications need a key on the harness: FELIX_PUSH_VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY and FELIX_PUSH_VAPID_SUBJECT (see .env.example in the harness). Without them the Turn on line never appears. The routes are described under Push.

Typing

On a touch keyboard, Return starts a new line and the send button sends: a phone keyboard has no Shift+Return, so this is the only way to write a second line. With a hardware keyboard attached to an iPad, Return sends as it does on a desk, and ⌘Return always sends. The keyboard shortcuts listed on a desk work the same way there.

Switching apps stops a live run

When you switch away, the phone suspends the page, and its connection to the harness goes with it. A run streaming into that page is stopped: the harness ends a run whose connection drops, deliberately, so an abandoned run does not keep spending. When you come back, the thread shows what the run finished and says that leaving stopped it.

For anything you will not watch to the end, use Run in background (the clock beside the send button). A background run lives on the harness, not in the page: it keeps going while you are away, and its approvals still reach you as notifications.

What is not available

• Mounting a folder. Giving the agent a folder on your device needs a desktop browser with the File System Access API (Chrome or Edge). On a phone, client tools work in a scratch space that lives in the app.
• Hover-only controls. None. A message’s actions (copy, edit, rewind, rate) are always visible on a touch screen.