When to Use What

I need to…

…chat with the agent

Use the session chat. Create or resume a session, then type your message. The provider handles the rest.

…approve a command the agent wants to run

Open the Approvals tab or tap the pending action card in the chat. Choose approve once, approve always, or reject.

…see what files the agent changed

Use the Filesystem browser or the Git diff view. Filesystem shows the current tree; Git shows working, staged, and remote diffs.

…run a command myself

Use the Terminal. It spawns a shell on the host with SIDEMESH_TOKEN removed from the environment.

…preview my local website on my phone

Use Browser. Open localhost:5173 or the full URL, and Sidemesh opens it as a tab for the session.

…see what the agent’s browser tool sees

Use Browser. The daemon captures screenshots from a headless browser and streams them to the app.

…edit a file the agent missed

Use the Filesystem editor. Navigate to the file, tap edit, and write your changes.

…check if the agent broke my repo

Use the Git status and diff endpoints. Check working diff for unstaged changes and staged diff for pending commits.

…switch models or reasoning levels

Use the session controls if the provider advertises model switching. Codex and Pi support this; Copilot is limited.

…connect from outside my home network

Use Tailscale. Install Tailscale on both the host and client, then use the Tailscale IP in the host URL.