iOS companion

The native iOS companion is a thin client. Your computer remains the only machine that owns agent processes, credentials, transcripts, SQLite data, and computers.

What it can do

• Discover and pair on the same LAN, connect through Tailscale, or use an optional account-provisioned HTTPS address — and keep multiple saved computers with a one-tap switcher
• List bots and rooms, read paged transcripts, send messages, and interrupt work
• Answer approvals and questions, including narrow always-allow grants — including directly from the Dynamic Island or Lock Screen: a bot that needs you or is working shows as a Live Activity with answer buttons
• Share into Brainwrite from any app: the Share-sheet extension sends selected text, links, images, and documents to a bot or room, remembering your last destination per computer
• Dictate messages with on-device speech recognition, and edit the composer's quick-reply chips to your own phrases
• Create channels and sidebar sections, edit routines and review routine runs, manage task contexts, and view paired-safe agent profiles (avatar, voice, credential status)
• Review connected apps on the phone: see accounts per toolkit and start a new authorization (revocation deliberately stays on the computer)
• Read rich transcript cards — git PR diffs, skill execution receipts, streaming agent reasoning, and SQL result tables
• Search, manage tasks, react, share transcripts as Markdown or JSON, and navigate message versions
• Follow resumable live updates and optionally view a bot's computer; a cloud desktop opens in an in-app browser with a freshly minted, never-persisted HTTPS link. The loopback-only VPS SSH viewer currently opens in the desktop app.

Pairing

The desktop opens a two-minute pairing window with a high-entropy QR credential and a six-digit manual fallback. The QR defaults to the hosted HTTPS address when one is provisioned, with Tailscale and trusted-local as explicit choices. Redeeming either closes the window and returns a separate per-device token stored in iOS Keychain.

The computer stores only a digest of the device token. Revoking the phone from desktop Settings invalidates future requests.

Network options

• Same trusted Wi-Fi: Bonjour discovery and direct HTTP.
• Away from home: Tailscale on both devices with the computer's MagicDNS name.
• Hosted HTTPS: sign in by email on the desktop to provision a private Cloudflare Tunnel address; the phone still pairs to that specific computer.

LAN and Tailscale remain available without a Brainwrite account. The hosted control plane stores account/installation metadata, not transcripts; Cloudflare proxies phone traffic to the user's computer. Bonjour does not cross Tailscale, so that direct remote option uses manual address entry.

Your computer must remain on, awake, and running Brainwrite. In desktop Companion Settings, Keep this computer awake can prevent system sleep while Companion is enabled; it is off by default, allows the screen to turn off, and may use more battery. A sleeping or powered-off computer cannot be reached even through hosted HTTPS.

Security boundary

The companion sidecar uses a default-deny route allowlist. Provider keys, pairing administration, Local VM lifecycle, webhook secrets, team import/export, and internal peer-agent routes remain unreachable from the phone.