Claudia – Desktop companion for Claude code
111 comments
·August 17, 2025commandar
ramoz
And then the providers ship a landmark feature or overhaul themselves. Especially as their models advance.
Wrappers constantly live in the support and feature parity of today.
Anthropic’s Claude Code will look a hell of a lot different a year from now, probably more like an OS for developers and Claude Agent non-tech. Regardless they are eating the stack.
Pricing/usage will be very simple - a fixed subscription and we will no longer know the tokenomics because the provider will have greatly abstracted and optimized the cost per token, favoring a model that they can optimize margin against a fixed revenue floor.
zarzavat
I'm more optimistic. Open source and open weights will eat this whole space.
Training is capital-intensive, yes, but so far it appears that there will always be some entities willing to train models and release them for free. All it takes is a slowdown at the frontier for the open models to catch up.
The money is in the hardware, not the software.
bigyabai
> a fixed subscription and we will no longer know the tokenomics because the provider will have greatly abstracted
This is definitely not how most compute-constrained cloud services end up looking. Your cloud storage provider doesn't charge you a flat rate for 5tb/month of storage, and no amount of financier economics can get Claude there either.
raincole
> the trend seems to be everyone developing a million disparate tools
Which is super cool. Like during the dawn of web 2.0 we had lots of aggregators and forums instead of "Reddit and others."
(I'm not saying it's good UX.)
commandar
To be clear: having a diversity of tools is a good thing! I like having options.
My complaint is more that right now it feels like everybody is rushing to fill the exact same space with the exact same feature sets.
It's resulting in a lot of superficial diversity that's functionally homogenous. I want to see more applications that are pushing the capabilities of current AI tooling in creative directions.
turtlebits
If you don't care about bleeding edge, most of these will fall to the wayside and a few superior options will win out.
Otherwise, you're going to see the variations on the same thing over and over, which is totally fine, and where innovation comes from.
Personally, I just use stock VS Code (copilot) and Cursor.
latexr
> Like during the dawn of web 2.0 we had lots of aggregators and forums instead of "Reddit and others."
So, in other words, this is the exact opposite? “Lost of aggregators and forums” meant diversity. Lots of small players doing their own thing. What we have now is a handful of big players, and then tons of small players accessing those services with a different coat of paint. It’s like if the web you mention consisted of lots of people doing alternative interfaces to access Facebook and Reddit.
herval
> lots of people doing alternative interfaces to access Facebook and Reddit.
So… what we had on web 2 then, with its daily twitter clients? There were hundreds and hundreds of them
ako
As the code generation tools improve, this will only get worse. Having gen ai build a clone of something with some minor differences will become easier and easier.
mccoyb
There's few new ideas in this space, it's pretty boring.
How many ways can you wrap (multiple agents, worktrees, file manager, diff viewer, accept reject loops, preset specifications for agents) -- let's try Electron! Let's try Tauri! Let's try a different TUI!
What if we sat down and really thought about how these agentic IDEs should feel first instead of copy pasting the ideas to get something out to acquire market and mind share? That's significantly harder, and more worthwhile.
That's how these agentic front ends should be advertised: "Claude Code, plus _our special feature_" and then one can immediately see if the software is filled or devoid of interesting ideas.
scottgg
I’m assuming/hoping this is gonna end up as regular plugins for existing IDEs
commandar
That's kind of what I mean though.
Because I mentioned it and it's what I use daily: Roo is a VSCode extension. So you get the entire VSCode ecosystem for free. On the AI specific side, it has every feature this app highlights on its homepage and more. It works with just about any API provider and model you could ask for.
I could probably translate my existing workflow over to Claudia pretty easily, but what does that get me? A slightly different interface seems to be about it.
That's the question I keep hitting with these new tool announcements.
scottgg
Didn’t know about roo! But I’m with you; I don’t see why folks are investing their efforts in building more of these shiny wrappers, and what their expected end game could be.
rovr138
Not tied to VSCode is a big one for me. This one is agnostic.
Continue.dev has some features, but it’s on VSCode and Jetbrains
commandar
If you're opposed to using VSCode for whatever reason, that's reasonable. Though, for me personally, the fact that it only lets you use Claude Code strikes me as a much larger negative on net. It's not at all agnostic in terms of AI provider.
That said, VSCode is a popular platform for this for exactly the reason I think consolidation is eventually inevitable: it's got a huge preexisting ecosystem. There are extensions for practically anything you could ask for.
There's likely room for some standalone, focused apps in this space. I just don't see the current wave of "we put a wrapper around Claude Code and gave it some basic MCP and custom prompt management tools like a dozen other applications this week" being sustainable.
They're all going to end up on their own tiny islands unless there's a reason for an ecosystem to develop around them.
breakfastduck
There are lots and lots and lots of us that don't like using VSCode, want to use our own IDE of choice and use Claude Code. Terminal / standalone app is best for me there or even better an IDE plugin.
A tiny island is fine for a tool like this - not everything needs an 'ecosystem'.
serf
"agnostically gnostic".
you give up one side of freedom (the ide) for the other (the backend).
arunc
May I know what the other 2 tools are?
marxism
If the "on the go" experience is important to you, i.e. you actually want some care and intention put into the phone experience. There are 4 apps I'm aware of:
- Happy Claude Code Client: open source (MIT) effort for a quality mobile app
- Omnara: closed source mobile app, $9/month
- CodeRemote: closed source mobile app, $49/month
- Kisuke: closed source mobile app, private beta, unknown price
If you know of others, I would appreciate a PR to update the table I put together, or just let me know and I'll add it.
https://happy.engineering/docs/comparisons/alternatives/#qui...
There are more more desktop apps, probably because those are easier to design.
paulddraper
> primary variation being greater-or-lesser lock-in to a particular set of services
> I don't see what this offers me that I don't already have with Roo
Ironic >-< for an AI tool tied to a specific IDE
alphazard
Does this sandbox the agents? All I want is a way to keep the agents from writing to and reading from arbitrary places on the filesystem. I want that enforced using operating system primitives rather than a pinky promise with an LLM.
It already worries me that the Cursor agents occasionally try to perform operations with full absolute paths, which they wouldn't be able to know if they were properly sandboxed to the current directory.
__MatrixMan__
Why not just run the assistant as a user with limited permissions? Your OS likely supplies all the handcuffs you're going to need.
johnfn
You can solve this yourself with a little elbow grease with Docker + a devcontainer. I did this and I’m very happy with the results - Claude can do anything it wants, but it can’t push to prod.
diegof79
Perhaps this helps: https://container-use.com/introduction
gorbypark
You could try sandbox-exec. It’s kind of depreciated but was more or less designed for this exact use case I think. It’s too bad Apple doesn’t really support it anymore (although it still works in my limited testing!)
xixixao
Too bad OSs have such lock-in. Having a macOS with great sandboxing per folder + os capability to avoid the docker hellscape would be awesome. Probably not gonna happen until we can oneshot an OS rewrite :)
MrDarcy
sarcasm? macOS and iOS has all this today.
steveklabnik
If you use VS:Code, Anthropic provides an example DevContainer.
LeicaLatte
Loving all these Claude Code as a Platform products. Hope Anthropic doesn't ban them once they become popular citing some vague TOS violation.
kelnos
I get that some people go that way, but to me, the fact that Claude Code is a standalone terminal app is a strength, not a weakness. I don't really want or need a GUI here. "From Terminal Chaos to Visual Clarity" doesn't resonate with me; terminals to me are simpler and more structured.
At most, I've been thinking about installing one of the extensions to integrate Claude Code into (neo)vim, but even that I'm not sure I really want or need.
But for people who arm themselves to the teeth with GUIs and IDEs, I guess I can see the appeal.
christiangenco
I'm with you on desktop but I've been craving some sort of way to interact with Claude Code from my phone while I'm out and about.
What I want at the core is to be able to open up access to my laptop's currently running Claude Code instance (without all these hacky backdoors that fork the chat with every message by using `--print`; I want a first class API that lets me append messages to the current chat), then I want to be able to send messages (with voice transcription) and approve/deny permissions and see the code diffs and all of that.
Maybe something like a Telegram bot? I had hopes for Claude Code UI[1] but the web interface is too clunky on mobile.
phren0logy
I have been using VibeTunnel from the iPad. Probably not good for a phone, but on a slightly larger screen it's great. The tailscale integration makes it super easy.
metadat
Pretty neat, links included below for convenience:
https://github.com/amantus-ai/vibetunnel
Many of my claude tasks get frequently get stuck over small stuff, or require input from me, so I had Claude whip up something comparable in a few minutes. Now I can keep them moving remotely with ease and not be stuck in front of a desktop monitoring them! It's dreamy.
greggh
This showed up on Hacker News a few daysd ago:
kelnos
What's your use case / use need for this flow? Personally I really do not want to do this sort of thing from my phone. I just can't see "coding" from my phone as anything but clunky and unpleasant, even with an assistant.
(Not to mention that if I only have my phone, I'm probably out doing something where I don't want to be working...)
dvno42
Similar request as the parent, my use case is I setup a long prompt/task and like to go for a walk around the block to get my legs moving. Being able to "move the llm along" and make small modifications from my phone would be nice. Personally, I'd never do a long session that way but the chance to move my legs while it does a long task but not get stuck on a simple question in the claude tool would be lovely.
dkdcio
use Termius (shell client for iOS devices). put your phone and laptop/desktop on the same VPN. SSH in, use Claude Code normally from anywhere
zerealshadowban
Claudia is open-source, made by a S24 YC company https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/asterisk
preommr
I definitely thought this was an anthropic thing that they were trying to spin off into it's own website and app for normies.
I am not saying it's infringement, I am just saying that my dumb brain made that connection and I feel like it's not unreasonable to assume that other people might as well.
mirsadm
I also made the assumption. Once I found out it wasn't it was a huge red flag. I don't like it at all.
iamflimflam1
Agreed - I was about to send this round to my colleagues.
For once reading the comments first has paid off!
mirekrusin
Same here, first thing I did was to scroll down to see company in the footer and nope... somebody will be receiving legal letters soon I'd guess.
null
IshKebab
This is exactly why trademarks exist, and why if they want to bother, Anthropic can 100% make them change the name.
Same reason you can't release a handheld console called the Gamegirl, or a voice assistant called Alexis.
rane
How will they make money?
bigyabai
Step 1: Manufacture a bunch of low-quality "good enough" codebases
Step 2: Turn around and sell security-as-a-service to the most profitable products
mirekrusin
The only way there is to make money - from VCs.
jshchnz
for those interested in a native mac app for claude code: https://www.josh.ing/claudius
sibeliuss
That video on the homepage is insane... please for the sake of your amazing app, slow it down and make it less frantic!
(Super rapid zooming in and out, flying all over screen at 3x speed, must cover eyes!!)
nperez
Agreed 100%. When you work on an app every day, it all makes sense to see the cool features flash by, but you need to design for people who don't have a clue what your app does.
canogat
Engineers often see no value in what marketers do. This video is what they don't do.
dcreater
It stuns me how bad many engineers are in basic communication.
Made something? Dont start with a long, protracted "This is how i built it from step 1". Show the damn thing! Then tell me how you built which i will be interested in only if the product is good to begin with.
svantana
Wait, you are somehow sure that no marketer was involved in making this video? Seems unlikely
fullstackwife
Video promises what it should: a dopamine shot!
null
chis
Really good idea, I’ll have to try it out. The thing I really want is to have the ability to give a recipe for a new Claude code instance - spin up a docker image with code, data, and a running server and then let Claude work against that.
smithclay
Hey, it's not well known but Anthropic actually publishes their own devcontainer feature layer for this (1). Many different CLI wrappers and tools are starting to imbed it (2) but is a nice DIY/open-source way to sandbox.
1. https://github.com/anthropics/devcontainer-features 2. shameless plug, my own open-source CLI for doing this: https://github.com/smithclay/claudetainer
astral_drama
I've developed a system that checks out a git repo into a docker compose container, tells claude to read a feature story, then implement it with --dangerously-skip-permissions turned on within the container. It work well enough.
I think it's another workflow, that might suit your needs, but I think the real magic continues to be in the model. Similarly, I'm sure Claudia adds some nice window dressing.
Eventually folks will settle in on some local maxima for interaction and software development with LLMs. Who know what it will look like? It'd be nice if whatever comes next bumps the industry out of the current scrum and sprint style workflows, if only to break folks out of the theatrics of these software personas and rituals.
Here's my WIP: https://github.com/astral-drama/filter
chrisdemarco
I’ve used something similar, it’s a good workflow!
TheTaytay
I’ve been wanting the same thing. I am currently experimenting with a container that adds what I want. I keep wanting my sandboxed dev machine that is preconfigured with Claude (and almost nothing else)…but then I also want my customized Claude. I saw someone here on HN the other day who just spins up a Docker container and shares their home directory Claude files with it to facilitate the customized Claude container:
adastra22
You can do this with devcontainer and still work within VSCode.
null
vunderba
Agree would feel far more comfortable if each Claudia project was a separate docker container that was spun up with the appropriate tooling (Node, Python, etc.) particularly with flags like `--dangerously-skip-permissions`.
There is an outstanding feature request around it at least:
trevor-e
Personally I like the UI for https://conductor.build/ a lot more than this, although I'll have to give it a try.
I see a lot of commenters asking why a GUI is necessary. When you're running several agents in parallel it becomes very handy compared to the terminal. I can easily see the status of each which I haven't found a good equivalent for when using terminal tabs. Also it handles automatically creating git worktrees for each agent which is great.
sejje
Try not using tabs, that's my recommendation.
You can tile terminals, you can use things like tmux to insert multiple command lines into one window, etc.
divan
I like that it's not mutually exclusive with normal Claude Code usage in terminal.
Question about Dashboard - I'm on subscription plan, and Dashboard shows - "Total Cost: $XX.YY". Is it somehow representitive towards how much credit I used in my plan, or it's just showing a costs it would take if I was using API instead?
mirrormaru56
Well that didn' take long. There are so many Editors and IDE's now. I wonder how many will survive a year from now.
On the one hand, it's good that we're seeing a lot of exploration in this space.
On the other, the trend seems to be everyone developing a million disparate tools that largely replicate the same functionality with the primary variation being greater-or-lesser lock-in to a particular set of services.
This is about the third tool this week I've taken a quick look at and thought "I don't see what this offers me that I don't already have with Roo, except only using Claude."
We're going to have to hit a collapse and consolidation cycle eventually, here. There's absolutely room for multiple options to thrive, but most of what I've seen lately has been "reimplement more or less the same thing in a slightly different wrapper."