Codeman/docs/wiki/Remote-SSH-Sessions.md

Remote SSH Sessions

Point a case at another machine and the agent runs there, with the same dashboard, mobile UI, and autonomy features. Your laptop becomes a window onto a session living on the remote host.

Like Docker, this is a location overlay on a case, not a run mode. All seven run modes work remotely. See Core Concepts.

Why bother

The agent runs where the work is: a build server, a NAS, a GPU box, a machine reachable only through a jump host. Your laptop can sleep, change networks, or close, and the run continues.

Setting it up

Add Case → Remote:

Field	Notes
Host	Hostname or IP.
Username	The SSH user.
Port	Defaults to 22.
Identity file	~ and $HOME are expanded for you.
Jump host	The -J equivalent, [user@]host[:port].
SOCKS proxy	For hosts reachable only through a proxy.
Extra SSH options	Any KEY=VALUE options your normal connection needs.
Remote path	The working directory on that machine.

Hosts are saved and reusable, so a second case on the same machine is just a path. Host profiles can also carry per-run-mode launch command overrides, for when the binary lives somewhere unusual on that host.

The remote host needs tmux. Codeman probes for it when you link the host rather than failing later at launch.

What actually runs

The agent lives inside a dedicated tmux server on the remote host, and Codeman fronts it with a local tmux pane running ssh.

That two-layer arrangement is what makes it durable: a dropped SSH connection, a network change, or a closed laptop kills the local pane, not the remote session. Reconnecting lands back in the same live conversation.

The remote session name is deliberately chosen so that a Codeman running on the target host will not adopt it as one of its own. Two Codemans, one host, no interference.

Auto-reconnect

A watcher with bounded backoff notices a dead SSH pane and quietly reattaches to the still running remote session. On by default; the kill switch is in App Settings → Agents & CLIs → Remote auto-reconnect.

Intentional kills are never revived. Closing a session means closing it.

Discover and attach

Codeman can list the codeman-* sessions already running on a host, whether that machine's own Codeman started them or another operator did, and attach to one.

The distinction that matters:

Session	On tab close
Launched	Killed, like any local session.
Attached	Detached, never killed.

Attaching to someone else's session and closing your tab must not end their run, so it does not. Several clients can attach the same remote session at different window sizes without clamping each other, and discovery shows a shared badge with the client count.

Security

Every SSH command line in Codeman flows through one builder that shell-escapes every user-supplied field: identity paths, jump hosts, proxy commands, and extra options. That is the entire injection surface, and it is deliberately a single function rather than string concatenation spread across the codebase.

Host, path, and identity fields are schema-validated on top of that.

Codeman does not store SSH passwords. Use keys, as you would for any other automation.

Gotchas

• The remote host needs tmux. Probed at link time, so you find out immediately.
• The local working directory is meaningless for a remote session, and is not used.
• Run flows must go through the quick-start path for remote cases. This matters if you are driving Codeman over the API: the plain session-create endpoint validates the working directory locally and has no case concept, so it will reject or misroute a remote case.
• Latency is SSH latency. Local echo helps the typing feel, but a slow link is a slow link.
• Transcript-backed features follow the transcript. Subagent windows and similar surfaces read files on the machine where the agent runs.

Read next

• Core Concepts - overlays versus run modes.
• Docker Cases - the other overlay.
• Security - the wider model.
• docs/remote-sessions.md - the full design.