Mobile

Mobile-tuned chat surface and PWA install on iOS / Android.

pi-forge is an installable PWA with a mobile-tuned chat surface — talk to the agent and monitor what it's doing from your phone.

What works on mobile

The phone surface is chat + project monitoring:

Send prompts, watch the streaming reply
Switch projects and sessions via the slide-in drawer
Slash commands and @ file references with phone-tuned popovers
Attach photos from gallery / camera, or files from the system file manager
Abort an in-flight agent run

Hidden (and unmounted, not just display: none) on mobile so they don't load CodeMirror or hold a server-side PTY:

File browser tree
Per-turn diff panel
Git panel
File editor
Integrated terminal

To get the desktop layout on a phone, use your browser's "Request Desktop Site" toggle — the mobile breakpoint reacts to viewport width, not user-agent, so the layout snaps back to full desktop.

Installing as a PWA

Once installed, pi-forge runs fullscreen with no browser chrome and respects your phone's safe-area insets.

iOS Safari. First visit shows a hint: "Install: tap Share, then Add to Home Screen." iOS doesn't fire beforeinstallprompt — there's no Install button, only the Share-sheet flow. If you dismiss the hint, reach the same flow via the share button (square with up-arrow).

Android Chrome / Brave / Edge. First visit shows a banner with an Install button. If you dismiss it, install via the browser menu → Install app (or Add to Home Screen).

HTTPS is required for install (operator gotcha)

Both Chrome and Safari only treat a site as installable over HTTPS (or http://localhost). A LAN-IP http:// instance — including the npm run dev:remote flow at http://10.0.0.5:5173 — won't show an install option even with a valid manifest and service worker.

Production deployments behind a TLS-terminating reverse proxy (Caddy, nginx, Traefik) get install for free. For local testing, two paths:

ngrok (easiest):

npm run build
HOST=127.0.0.1 UI_PASSWORD='your-pw' node packages/server/dist/index.js &
ngrok http 3000

Visit the https://….ngrok.io URL on your phone.

Chrome's insecure-origin-as-secure flag. On the phone, visit chrome://flags#unsafely-treat-insecure-origin-as-secure, add your LAN URL, enable, restart Chrome. Brave has the same flag at brave://flags.

npm run dev / dev:remote also disables the service worker (devOptions: { enabled: false } in vite.config.ts) so HMR works — that's a second reason install won't work in dev. You need a production build (npm run build) for the SW to be active.

Mobile-specific behaviors

Enter inserts a newline. Mobile virtual keyboards don't surface Shift, so the desktop "Shift+Enter for newline" rule is unusable. Send via the explicit Send button. The slash and @ palettes still own Enter when open.
Keyboard auto-dismisses on send so the streaming reply isn't hidden behind half a screen of keyboard.
Textarea auto-grows with input, capped at 30 vh, then scrolls internally.
Composer rides above the keyboard via the interactive-widget=resizes-content viewport hint — no JS, just CSS reacting to the shrunk visual viewport.
Attach button (paperclip) opens a popover: Photo for gallery + camera, File for the system file manager.
Drawer. Hamburger button at top-left, or swipe right from the left edge. Tap the backdrop or pick a project / session to close.
Theme-aware browser chrome — Android Chrome's address bar follows the active theme via the theme-color meta tag, updated on every theme switch.
Background streaming. If you close the tab mid-stream the agent keeps running server-side, but updates don't reach you until you reopen pi-forge (no push notifications).

Mobile

What works on mobile

Installing as a PWA

HTTPS is required for install (operator gotcha)

Mobile-specific behaviors

See also