# tessera on iPhone

Tessera runs on iPhone and iPad as one universal app — same App Store listing,
same unlock, no separate purchase. The iPad remains the keyboard-first place
for real work; the iPhone is built as a **companion surface**: glance at a
build, scroll back through output, approve an agent prompt, fire off a quick
command — with [mosh](https://bambouville.com/docs/mosh/) and [tmux](https://bambouville.com/docs/tmux/) keeping the session alive
in between.

![Tessera on iPhone showing the keys tab with a keys / known hosts selector at the top, two keys listed, and the four-tab bar — hosts, sessions, keys, settings — along the bottom.](https://bambouville.com/docs/assets/img/phone-keys.png)

*The compact shell: hosts, sessions, keys, and settings as tabs — keys and known hosts share one tab behind a selector.*

## The tab bar

The iPhone replaces the iPad sidebar with four tabs: **hosts**, **sessions**,
**keys**, and **settings**. Two of them carry a second view behind a
selector: *sessions* also holds the [agent center](https://bambouville.com/docs/agent-center/) (when the
experiment is enabled — the tab shows a badge when agents need attention),
and *keys* also holds [known hosts](https://bambouville.com/docs/host-keys/#the-known-hosts-page). The
sessions tab is badged with your live session count.

The same compact shell appears on an iPad in Split View, Slide Over, or a
narrow Stage Manager window — it follows the window size, not the device.

## In a session

A session opens full-screen above the tabs. The compact top bar keeps the
essentials:

- **back** (chevron) — return to the tabs; *the session keeps running*.
- **host name** — tap to open the switcher (below).
- **+** — new tmux window, when the session is tmux-backed.
- **find**, **files**, and forwarding status.
- **✕** — disconnect. Unlike backing out, this ends the session immediately.

## The switcher

Tapping the host name opens one searchable surface for moving around: tmux
windows and their panes, other live sessions, saved hosts, and — when agent
center is on — agents. It's also where compact tmux actions live: **split
left / right**, **split top / bottom**, and **rename window**.

## Your tmux layout is safe

Attaching from the phone never reflows a layout you built elsewhere. The
window's server-side geometry, splits, and zoom state stay exactly as your
iPad or desktop left them; the phone shows **one pane at a time, full-screen**,
chosen through the switcher. Only a session first created on the iPhone uses
phone geometry — and if an iPad later attaches to it, the larger screen takes
over the grid.

## Typing without hardware keys

- The **accessory bar** above the keyboard carries `esc`, `ctrl`, `tab`,
  arrows, `alt`, and `^J` by default — tap a modifier once to apply it to the
  next key, twice to lock it. A dedicated control shows or hides the software
  keyboard.
- The [swipe pad](https://bambouville.com/docs/swipe-pad/) is on by default on iPhone, drawn as a corner
  fan in the thumb arc — including live agent options when an agent is
  waiting. Double-tap it for on-device dictation.
- A Bluetooth keyboard gets the full shortcut set, same as iPad.

## What stays on iPad

A few editing surfaces are deliberately iPad-only; the phone can *use* all of
them, it just doesn't edit them:

- **Forwarding rules** — tunnels are visible from the session top bar, but
  rules are created and edited on iPad.
- **Jump chains, environment variables, and startup snippets** in the host
  editor (the phone has a minimal editor for the common fields).
- **The theme preview gallery** and terminal background pictures — theme
  selection itself lives in [appearance](https://bambouville.com/docs/appearance/) on both.
- **The large swipe-pad puck** size, and the multi-session restore chooser —
  the phone has a single *restore on launch* toggle instead.