Remote sessions with Visual Studio Code and Claude Code

I regularly start coding sessions on a beefy remote Linux box instead of my laptop, and I wanted a way to walk away from a session mid-task and pick it back up later — from a different terminal, from the browser, or from my phone — without losing any context. Claude Code’s Remote Control feature, combined with a VS Code Dev Container and a tmux session on the remote host, does exactly that. Here’s the setup, step by step.

This HOWTO is generic, in the following sections you should replace the following placeholders:

• REMOTE_HOST: hostname or IP address of the remote Linux server, reachable over SSH
• REMOTE_USER: my own SSH user on that host
• REPOSITORY_URL: the Git repository containing the project’s Dev Container
• LOCAL_WORKDIR: where that repository is cloned on REMOTE_HOST

The command were tested on several REMOTE_HOSTs running different Linux-based Operating systems, such as Ubuntu 24.x server or Omarchy Quattro.

Prerequisites

Launch Visual Studio Code on your local machine and install these two extensions from the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X):

• Remote - SSH — lets VS Code connect to REMOTE_HOST over SSH and work with its filesystem directly.
• Dev Containers — lets VS Code open the project’s Dev Container once you’re connected to REMOTE_HOST.

Login to the remote host

Login to the remote server via SSH:

ssh $REMOTE_USER@$REMOTE_HOST

Identify the OS running on the remote server:

cat /etc/os-release

(Optional) Update the OS on REMOTE_HOST and reboot if required. For Ubuntu:

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y dist-upgrade && sudo apt -y autoremove --purge
sudo reboot

Wait until the server comes back online, then log in via SSH again and verify that the host OS is now up to date.

Clone the Git workspace

Use the tool you prefer (Visual Studio Code, the command line, etc.) to clone the Git repository at REPOSITORY_URL into LOCAL_WORKDIR of REMOTE_HOST. From the command line:

mkdir -p LOCAL_WORKDIR
cd LOCAL_WORKDIR
git clone REPOSITORY_URL

Install the Dev Container CLI

Check whether the devcontainer CLI is already installed on REMOTE_HOST:

devcontainer --version

If the command isn’t found, install it via npm (requires Node.js):

npm install -g @devcontainers/cli

Enter the Dev Container

Make sure that the Dev Container is up and running on REMOTE_HOST, then list its properties:

cd LOCAL_WORKDIR
devcontainer --version
devcontainer up | jq

Log into the Dev Container:

devcontainer exec bash

Run tmux in the Dev Container

Logged into the Dev Container, make sure that the tmux command is available, otherwise install it:

# Dev Container based on Debian (i.e. Ubuntu)
which tmux || (sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install tmux)

# Dev Container based on Arch (i.e. Omarchy)
which tmux || sudo pacman -S --noconfirm tmux

Attach to a running tmux session, or create a new one:

tmux

Your terminal will display one tmux window as shown:

Configure Claude Code

Make sure Claude Code is installed in the Dev Container:

which claude || curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

Claude Code will be installed if it was not found. When the installation is complete, the following message will be displayed on the terminal:

The first time you launch the claude command, a setup wizard runs:

1. Select your preferred text style.

   

2. Select a login method and follow the instructions.

   

3. If everything is OK, you should get a confirmation message.

   

4. Press Enter to continue and read the security notes.

   

5. Read and select Yes, I trust this folder to continue.

   

6. Type Ctrl-C twice to exit Claude Code and return to the command prompt.

   

Enable Claude Code Remote Control

Back at the Bash prompt inside the Dev Container, type claude remote:

$ claude remote

Take this session with you and pick up right where you left off on any device.
Open the Code tab in the Claude mobile app, or visit claude.ai/code in a browser.

The session keeps running on this machine. Use your other devices as a remote
control. Press Ctrl+C to stop.

Enable Remote Control? (y/n)

Type y to enable Remote Control:

Enable Remote Control? (y/n) y

Remote Control is launching in spawn mode, which lets you start new sessions in this project from claude.ai/code or the Claude mobile app. Learn more: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/remote-control

Spawn mode for this project:
  [1] same-dir — sessions share the current directory (default)
  [2] worktree — each session gets an isolated git worktree

This can be changed later or explicitly set with --spawn=same-dir or --spawn=worktree.

Choose [1/2] (default: 1):

Choose the option you prefer — I selected 2 (worktree) so that each session gets an isolated Git worktree.

As suggested, you may type space to show a QR code:

You can either scan the QR code or open the URL displayed in the terminal to continue coding from another device.

You may be asked to sign in again to verify your device:

The session will stay open until the claude remote command is terminated:

Note: because claude remote was launched from inside a tmux window, the remote session stays open even if the SSH connection to REMOTE_HOST terminates or the client reboots.

From here, you can pick the very same session back up from the Code tab in the Claude mobile app, from https://claude.ai/code in a browser, or from another terminal — the work in progress, and Claude’s context, are all still there.