Remote Control connects the Agent on your desktop to chat apps such as Lark, DingTalk, Telegram, and WeChat. Away from the computer, you message the bot on your phone and the Agent on the computer looks things up, changes files, and runs commands, then sends the result back to your phone. Remote delivery in Task Center and Remote delivery in Focus mode use the same accounts and chats you connect here.
Every connected channel is dialed out from your computer, so no public IP address is needed. Remote Control runs along with the desktop app and stops when you quit the app.
Supported channels
| Channel | Notes |
|---|---|
| Lark | Suited to use inside an enterprise; can send files |
| DingTalk | Suited to use inside an enterprise; can send and receive images, files, and media |
| Telegram | Suited to individual use; sending files is not supported yet |
| The other party must have sent a message before it can reply, so it does not suit scheduled pushes or focus alerts. It is in a staged rollout and may not be visible yet | |
| Webhook | Pushes messages into your own system only; no replies come back |
Connecting a channel
- Select Remote Control in the left navigation, then select Add remote control. The wizard has 4 steps:
- Choose an app: pick the chat app to connect, among Telegram, Lark, DingTalk, WeChat, and Webhook.
- Create and configure: create the bot on that platform as the wizard says, and fill the credentials back into the wizard.
- Lark: create a custom app on the open platform and turn on its bot, then, as the wizard says, import permissions, choose a long connection for receiving messages, publish the app, and fill in the App ID and App Secret.
- DingTalk: create an internal enterprise app, add a bot, choose Stream mode for receiving messages, enable the permission to send messages, publish, and fill in the Client ID and Client Secret.
- Telegram: create a bot through @BotFather and fill the token you get into the wizard.
- WeChat: scan the code with WeChat on your phone as the wizard says, and confirm on the phone.
- Webhook: fill in the receiving address of your system.
- Confirm the connection: check the configuration. Saving it turns on Remote Control and starts the connector.
- Finish: send the bot a message from the chat app. The first one is refused, which is normal; it shows up in Pending chats, and you allow it by selecting Allow on the desktop.
Account settings
Remote permissions
Nobody on the phone can select a confirmation card, so every remote run is treated as unattended: actions inside the permission profile run directly, and actions outside it are refused outright.
| Profile | What it can do | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Read-only | Read files, search memory, look things up online | The default choice |
| Read + write in project | Everything read-only allows, plus creating and changing files in the bound project | Bound project must be set as well |
| Full control | Run commands, take screenshots, read and write any file | Equivalent to handing your computer to this chat account; use it only with an account of your own |
Allowing new chats
- Approve automatically and record: a new direct or group chat is let through on its first message and recorded in the chat list, where you can delete it at any time.
- Approve manually: the chat goes into Pending chats, and works only after you select Allow.
Other settings
- Chat model: the model this account uses by default.
- Bound project: where files changed remotely are written.
- Send files: whether files from this computer may be sent to this channel. It is independent of the permission profile and has to be turned on separately.
- Allowed chats: only chats in this list can direct the Agent, and only they receive replies.
Using it on your phone
Just send a message and the Agent gets to work. A remote chat carries only about the last 4 turns of history, so sending !new first is more reliable when you switch topics. You can send images and files, up to 32 MB per attachment and up to 4 per message.
When a whole message holds nothing but one command, the desktop app handles it directly:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
!help | Show the list of commands |
!new | Start a new chat without the old context |
!history | List recent chats with their numbers |
!use <number> | Switch to one of the chats listed by !history |
!model | List the available models; !model <number or name> switches the model |
!plugins | List the plugins on this computer (plugin commands need the account to be on the Full control profile) |
Managing focus from your phone
Turn on Remote delivery in Focus mode, pick an account and an allowed chat, and focus results are pushed to your phone: error alerts, the conclusion of each round, and high-risk commands waiting for confirmation. It is worth turning on Sender only, which accepts messages and confirmation codes only from the people you name.
!status: check how each target is doing;!stop: end the focus;!confirm <code>/!reject <code>: approve or reject a high-risk command. A confirmation code stays valid for 5 minutes and is used up once.
For how Focus mode itself works, see Focus mode.
Phone connection (Beta)
Phone connection is a Beta feature and is off by default. The entry is Settings → Remote Control → "Experimental features" → "Phone connection (Beta)". To use it, the phone and the computer must be on the same local network, and the desktop app has to stay open.
Once the companion iPhone app is released, we will describe it separately in Changelog.