A VPS dev environment, in the browser

Why a VPS dev box at all

• One environment: the toolchain is installed once and is the same from every device you use.
• Always on: long test runs, builds and agents keep going after your laptop lid closes.
• Fast pipes: cloning, pulling images and hitting APIs happens on datacenter bandwidth, not cafe wifi.
• Disposable: snapshot it, rebuild it, or resize it without grieving over a laptop setup.

Set it up

On the VPS (Node 18+), inside the project you want to work on:

The host connects outbound (no port opened on the VPS, no reverse proxy, no TLS certificate of yours) and prints a single-use pairing code. Paste it into the CodeMote web app in any browser. That’s the whole setup; the connection guide covers the details and the troubleshooting.

A day in the workspace

• Edit in a real editor: the VPS’s files directly, saves landing on the VPS, nothing synced anywhere else.
• Terminals are real PTYs on the VPS that survive the tab: the dev server you started this morning is still serving tonight, from any browser you reopen.
• Git without leaving the tab: status, diff, commit, push, branches, and pull requests from open to merge, with credentials that stay on the VPS.
• Claude Code as a chat over the same checkout, when you want the agent to take a task (see running Claude Code on a VPS).

Where a cloud IDE fits instead

If you would rather rent the machine too (disposable per-branch environments, no server of your own), a hosted service like GitHub Codespaces is the honest alternative, with the trade-offs laid out in CodeMote vs GitHub Codespaces. The CodeMote model is for when the machine, and the code on it, should stay yours.