Git and pull requests from the browser

I have a rule I adopted after one too many times logging into GitHub from computers I didn't own: credentials live on machines I control, and nothing else. The rule is easy to state and was historically annoying to follow, because "I'm away from my desk and this PR needs attention" kept happening.

The setup I use now: my dev machine (a desktop at home, or a VPS, both work) runs the CodeMote host, and any browser can drive it through an encrypted tunnel. Git operations execute on that machine, with the SSH key and gh login that are already configured there. The browser sends actions and renders results. Nothing worth stealing ever touches the device I'm physically using.

Setup

On the dev machine, inside a repo:

npx codemote-cli start

Pair any browser at the connect page with the printed code. Since the connection is outbound-only from the host, it works from restrictive networks, which tend to be exactly the networks you're on when this matters.

Daily git

The git panel covers what I used to SSH in for: branch, dirty files, staged versus unstaged, diffs, commit. The diff view is the real upgrade over the terminal. I read my own changes more carefully in a proper side-by-side view than I ever did scrolling git diff; a couple of debug prints have been caught before commit purely because of that.

Pull requests

The PR view lists open PRs for the repo, and each one opens with description, status and per-file diffs. Reading, closing and merging all happen from there.

What makes this more than a GitHub mirror is that the machine underneath is my actual dev machine. So the workflow GitHub's own interface can't offer: check out the PR branch in the terminal, run the tests, poke at the behavior, then merge. A claimed green test suite and a test suite I've run myself are different levels of confidence, and here the difference costs one terminal command.

This matters more now that a chunk of my PRs are written by Claude Code. Agent PRs need the same review a human's do, arguably more, and I'm often not at my desk when they're ready. The agent works on the dev machine, I get notified, I review from whatever browser is nearby, and the terminals are right there to check claims.

What this is not

It's not a GitHub replacement. Threaded review comments, requested reviewers, CI logs: still GitHub, and the tab is one keystroke away. What this replaces is the specific gap where the code and the credentials are on a machine I'm not sitting at.

It also doesn't work if the dev machine is asleep. Mine is a mini PC that stays on; if yours is a laptop, sort the sleep settings first or this whole scheme fails at step one.

The security shape is the part I'd actually argue for, whatever tool you use to get it: git and its credentials on one machine you own, everything else reduced to a display. Once you've worked that way for a while, typing a GitHub password into a borrowed computer starts to feel as strange as it always should have.

Beta signup is on the homepage.