About twenty minutes of setup, one time. After that you build Android apps by talking to your phone, from anywhere, forever. Here is the whole truth about what it takes — nothing skipped, nothing softened.
This is the thing that actually writes your apps. Open a terminal on the computer and paste one line.
Then run claude once and sign in to your Claude account when it asks. Type /exit when it's done. That's it — it's installed and logged in.
Your phone talks to the computer over SSH. It's already built into every operating system — you just have to switch it on.
System Settings → General → Sharing → turn on Remote Login.
Two facts you'll type into the phone once.
Write down the address (something like 192.168.0.100) and the username. You'll also need that computer's login password.
One file. Open this page on your phone and tap:
⬇ Download Sparky (Android)Android will warn you that it's from an unknown source. That's expected — it's not from the Play Store, it's from a farm in Alberta. Tap allow from this source, then install.
Open Sparky. Put in the four things from step 3:
192.168.0.10022Tap connect. When it comes back, type hello. If something answers, you're finished — the hard part is behind you.
Don't start with your masterpiece. Start with something small so you can watch the whole loop happen once:
It'll write the code, compile it, and hand back a green Install button. Tap it. The app is on your phone. It's yours — you can ask for changes and get a new one in a minute.
Then try the real one. "A chore chart for my kids." "A logger for my truck's fuel." "Something that tracks when I water the plants." Plain words work. You do not have to sound technical.
Nine times out of ten it's one of three things: the phone is on mobile data instead of the wi-fi, the computer went to sleep, or the address changed. Check wi-fi first. Then wake the computer and re-run step 3 — home routers hand out new addresses periodically. To stop that, set a static IP or a DHCP reservation in your router, or use Tailscale.
Claude Code isn't installed for that user, or isn't logged in. SSH into the computer (or just sit at it), run claude, and make sure it starts and is signed in. If claude says "command not found" over SSH but works when you're sat at the machine, your shell profile isn't loading — add its folder to your PATH in ~/.bashrc.
Settings → Apps → Special access → Install unknown apps → pick your browser → allow. Then tap the downloaded file again.
That's your Claude plan's limit, not ours. It resets on a timer, and Sparky can wait for the reset and carry on where it stopped, or switch to a second Claude account if you have one. Nothing is lost.
Tell it what's wrong, in the same words you'd use to a person — "the buttons are too small", "it crashes when I hit save". It rebuilds. That back-and-forth is the tool; the first version being imperfect is normal, not a failure.
No. The app talks to your computer over SSH and to nothing of ours. Your prompts go to Anthropic under your own account, exactly as if you were typing at the computer yourself. We have your email address if you joined the waitlist, and that's the entire extent of it. See the Privacy Policy.
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