Rennet on your phone

Rennet’s native phone client is planned, not released. It is tracked in GitHub issue #383 and follows the mobile design pass in #382. This page describes what #383 will do so you can tell whether it fits how you review. It is not yet a guide to an app you can install.

The phone is a client for a daemon running on the machine that holds the repositories. Within its private network the phone acts as a full client: pair once, then read a review, watch a running turn live, answer an ask, and sign and post from the phone, with a push when a turn needs you.

Data paths

Review traffic goes directly between the phone and the paired daemon over the private network. Rennet does not operate a hosted relay or backend for that traffic. Tailscale is the documented route, the same one Remote access covers.

Push notifications use third-party infrastructure. The daemon sends the Expo push token, notification title and body, deep link, and any notification actions to Expo, which forwards the notification through Apple or Google. Rennet does not put host paths or the paired-device token in that payload. With push disabled, the in-app event stream still works while the phone can reach the daemon.

Current status

A source-built app lives in apps/mobile (Expo and React Native) and can already read and act on daemon state. It is not publicly distributed, and the desktop does not yet generate the QR code or pairing link the phone needs, so there is no complete end-to-end pairing flow yet. Reading a review’s body on the phone — the cohorts, findings, and hunks — is unavailable while the board is being rebuilt; the review screen says so rather than offering a route that dead-ends. The delta digest, a live turn, and publishing all work. The app pairs by exchanging a rennet://pair?url=...&code=... link for a device token stored in the platform’s secure storage, the same pairing model Remote access describes.

The phone will not edit repository files, browse the host filesystem, or open a host editor. Those actions stay on the machine that runs the daemon and coding harnesses.