My wife and I have a mobile group/shared bot system where we can make mini apps and collab.

Anything from baby stuff, groceries, shopping, planning, wine tracker app, simple/fun/useful data things, etc…

We have Tailscale on our phones and can instantly and privately see without deployment or anything crazy via our secure VPN.

Think shared Claude Artifacts that don’t live @ Anthropic.

Tried to first do this with Cloudflare Tunnels (because I love Cloudflare), but between the broken dashboard side of Zero Trust and nightmare of Warp… it was basically impossible to setup. I guess that’s all super enterprise, which seems to be very anti-Cloudflare philosophically to not be able to self do things.

Will check out Quick Tunnels but I think it’s missing the bigger integration offerings Tailscale has/does still.

▲ theturtletalks 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Tailscale is truly a cheat code. I have a web app that I run locally to control terminals on my Mac. I access the website on my phone using the 100.xx IP address and can code on the go. No need for a Mac or iOS app.

You can also use Tailscale serve to get a HTTPS url like Cloudflared but it's only visible to your tailnet. Be careful using Cloudflare tunnels because they are public and bots start poking around immediately.

▲ 0x1ch 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Alternatively, Netbird has been a dream to use over the last half year or so. I think their server software has had some hiccups on new releases, but I stagger those updates anyways. All self hosted, similar concept to Tailscale, very good management UI baked into the self hosted product.

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garettmd an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Netbird's great. I've been using Pangolin (https://pangolin.net/) lately for my homelab. It's very similar in functionality to Netbird, but I like the UX of it better.

	▲	0x1ch 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Also a very good alternative. I went on a spree and tried out all of the self hostable alternatives and this was definitely a runner up to netbird. The self hosted tailscale is also good, just not as polished as these two projects are.

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drcongo 6 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I switched from Tailscale to Netbird purely because of Tailscale's bizarre pricing tiers - I wanted just the SSH features, with multiple users, but the paid tier up from free didn't include the SSH features.

	▲	0x1ch 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think Tailscale would've fit my needs perfectly fine, but the management makes access control and grouping dead simple in netbird. It also generates a nice little map of your peers, their groups, and connected nodes etc. Quick visual on your topology.

▲ SparkyMcUnicorn 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You can also use Tailscale serve to get a HTTPS url like Cloudflared but it's only visible to your tailnet

For public access, similar to these cloudflare tunnels, there's Tailscale Funnel.

https://tailscale.com/docs/features/tailscale-funnel

▲ nacs 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Tailscale funnel works well but you can only have 1 per Tailscale instance (1 per machine) at the https endpoint so if you want to have a few apps, the others will go on non-https, custom-port URLs.

	▲	bakkoting 24 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You can set up paths that route to different local ports. As long as your apps don't need to live at the root path you can have as many as you like. And you can still have something on the root path as long as it doesn't need the subpath. Here's `tailscale funnel status` on my machine: `$ tailscale funnel status # Funnel on: # - https://my-machine.tailXXXX.ts.net https://my-machine.tailXXXX.ts.net (Funnel on) \|-- / proxy http://localhost:3000 \|-- /foo proxy http://localhost:3001 \|-- /bar proxy http://localhost:3002 \|-- /baz proxy http://localhost:4004`
	▲	MattCruikshank an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		That's why I keep using tsnet directly, where you can have as many virtual machines, doing sharing or funneling, as you want to. The CLI doesn't let you do as much as the go library does.
	▲	an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
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	▲	fragmede an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

▲ dlopes7 16 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I use tailscale on my steam deck to play stardew valley with my son on my laptop, it truly is amazing

▲ _user_account an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

just use wireguard; tailscale is just the SSO enterprise overlay with a pricing tab.

	▲	pocksuppet 2 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Wireguard is great for a point-to-point or multipoint VPN set up by a competent network administrator between machines with static addresses. But that's the only thing it does. It does not handle authentication or mobility very well.
	▲	matthewmacleod 31 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		No, it’s not. It handles the keys, provisioning, DNS, NAT traversal, and a bunch of other stuff. WireGuard is a great technology - Tailscale is like a usability layer on top of it.
	▲	titularcomment 34 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I think an important feature for homelabs is NAT traversal
	▲	herpdyderp an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I pay Tailscale nothing, why switch?

▲ cbsks 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> My wife and I have a mobile group/shared bot system where we can make mini apps and collab.

> Anything from baby stuff, groceries, shopping, planning, wine tracker app, simple/fun/useful data things, etc…

Can you elaborate on this? Sounds really cool!

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dizzard an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Not OP- I think there’s been some cool solutions popping up around hosting personal apps. On the front page this week was Capsule (https://withcapsule.app/). My personal solution is Exhibit (https://github.com/momja/Exhibit) which also has the goal of being a self-hostable artifact store.

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rambleraptor an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’ve been building something similar with [Homestead](https://myhomestead.dev). It’s my OSS solution for building mini apps. Each mini app is a Resct frontend and the backend (storage, auth, MCP, API, etc) just comes for free.

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SwamyM 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Seconded.

	▲	U4E4 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I’m not GP, but run something that’s pretty close to GPs description. It’s been a fun journey to set up. The core is chat+audio/video call server running locally on my m3 Mac Studio. Centrifugo has handled the chat concerns very well. LiveKit was a really nice foundation for video and audio calls. There are a few different options for local STT if you want that. I used RN via expo for the client and have my friends and family on TestFlight as beta testers. Utility over polish. With messages and call transcripts on my own box, I can prompt Claude code or Codex to operate on any message or transcript content. And follow up in chat with a message. I do most of that from Claude or ChatGPT mobile apps via remote control to my sessions running in the box. From there, if I give enough of a specc, anything that happens in chat or call transcripts can become an additional custom workspace in the main app. I think GP calls these mini apps. But they’re essentially rich clients under the main app umbrella. There’s other details, but yeah it’s a strange new world. Check my profile and reach out directly if you want.
	▲	2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

▲ gopalv an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> it’s missing the bigger integration offerings Tailscale has/does still.

Until I had tailscale serve generating valid certs, I had a good reason to use Cloudflare tunnels.

But in general I don't want to put everything on the internet side of things.

Mostly, I don't want something open, but more like a "share with" for people who are in the same office (virtually over tailnet, not physically on the same LAN).

This still works great for a demo instead of a product pitch, to send an link out to see something.

I'd still use a real host over a laptop for those.

▲ roberttod an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Does this work with remote agents though? I want my claude.ai agents running on my phone to be able to hit my local MCPs on my Mac Mini - my understanding is that tailscale wouldn't work because the execution is being called remotely. But seems like these tunnels would support that.

	▲	threecheese 21 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If by local MCP you mean stdio, then a tailnet won't help you unless you proxy the local MCP using something like mcp-proxy: https://github.com/sparfenyuk/mcp-proxy . That local mcp is only exposed to apps on the machine. The flow is Phone client --> agent harness or whatev --> Tailnet --> Mac Mini --> mcp-proxy http listener --> local mcp. But you need to wrap the local mcp runner in the proxy (check the docs). EDIT you don't mean running on your actual phone lol, you mean in the web browser at Claude.ai. Anyway, if you use mcp-proxy for a stdio mcp, or if it's an http mcp alone, then you would need a public endpoint for Claude.ai to connect to. Tailscale will only help you if you use Funnel, but this cloudflare thing is exactly what you need (w/o Tailscale).
	▲	parthdesai 31 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		if both your mac mini and your phone are on the same tailnet, can't you just ssh to your mac mini from your phone's terminal emulator and have claude code/codex run on it?

▲ noir_lord 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Only reason I have it (cloud flare tunnels) setup for personal use is because I had to do it for work years ago and yeah, Enterprise(tm) is a good description, haven't touched it in years so when it breaks I'll likely use something else.

Getting it to do what I wanted with a traefik front router with cloudflared talking to arbitrary subdomain that is spun up and broadcast from the other project side was very painful in a "this could be more friendly" way.

It has been truly bulletproof though since then so that's almost enough to make me go reread all the docs.

▲ nemosaltat 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Us too, consider using your bots to migrate your tailnet to headscale. Daily driving Headscale + Headplane + Tailscale’s graciously provided/compatible native apps makes me feel like my devices are truly under my control.

▲ FridayCuriousit 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interested in the the bot system and how your self publishing app artifacts that you've got running. Care to share more?

	▲	U4E4 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I run something similar, and in my system an app artifact is typically just a rich react component in a React Native client. They usually start as prototypes in chat, similar to what the labs provide in their native apps. If I or someone else in my user group wants more depth than a chat widget, then the artifacts can grow into a “workspace”. Oddly enough my richest workspaces have most been for entertainment. DnD, MtG deck building, HN comment thread parsing. And system management. Intrusion detection, feature life cycle/LLM handoff management, call telemetry. I do have a workspace for public county permit lookup which has been handy too. Reach out and I can share more.

▲ _blk 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So you have a phone to phone VPN and each runs services or just a regular rapid/synology at home with containers?