Use your PC's chat from your phone

The Tokori desktop app can act as a chat backend for the mobile app over the internet. Your phone sends messages through a tunnel you set up on your PC; the desktop runs the completion against whichever provider you've configured (Ollama, OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Minimax) and streams the reply back. API keys never leave the PC.

This is the same posture as Claude Code's mobile pairing — phone is the keyboard, PC does the work.

When this is the right tool

• You run a local model (Ollama with a 7B+) on a workstation and want to study on the train without lugging the laptop.
• You pay for API tokens by usage and want all calls to bill to the one provider key on your desktop instead of a duplicate mobile copy.
• You want chat parity between desktop and phone without standing up your own server.

It is not a substitute for sync — your phone still talks to api.tokori.ai for the rest of its data (vocab, library, sessions). This feature only relays chat through the desktop.

Architecture, briefly

 ┌──────────┐    HTTPS    ┌────────────────┐    loopback    ┌────────────┐
 │  Tokori  │ ─────────▶  │  cloudflared / │ ─────────────▶ │  Tokori    │
 │  Mobile  │             │  Tailscale     │                │  Desktop   │
 │          │ ◀───────── │  tunnel agent  │ ◀───────────── │  api_server│
 └──────────┘    SSE      └────────────────┘                └─────┬──────┘
                                                                  │
                                                            local provider
                                                            (Ollama / OpenAI /
                                                             Anthropic / …)

Two endpoints power it:

• GET /v1/remote/info — pairing probe, used by the phone to validate the URL + token.
• POST /v1/chat/stream — Server-Sent Events; reads the desktop's currently-active provider and streams the completion back.

Both are under the existing local API server (bearer-token authed, loopback bind). The tunnel agent is what makes them reachable from the phone — Tokori doesn't ship a relay service.

See Reference → Remote chat for the wire-level shape.

Setup (10 minutes)

1. Start the desktop's local API

On the PC: Settings → Local API → Start.

The card shows the bind address (127.0.0.1:53210 by default) and a bearer token. If you've ever set up the MCP server, this is the same token — no new secret to manage.

2. Pick a provider

Mobile chat will run on whatever provider is active on the desktop. Open Settings → Providers, add one, click Use to make it active. Any of these work:

• Ollama (best for "no API bills"). Make sure the daemon is running on the PC.
• OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini / Minimax with your own key. Cheaper than paying for cloud + mobile separately.

If your active provider is Tokori Cloud, the mobile endpoint will refuse to serve and tell you why — cloud chat is brokered through api.tokori.ai directly, no point round-tripping through your desktop.

3. Expose the PC with a tunnel

The desktop API listens on loopback only. To let your phone reach it, run a tunnel agent on the PC. We recommend Cloudflare Tunnel for the easiest start; Tailscale Funnel is a great alternative if you're already on Tailscale.

Cloudflare Tunnel (free, no account for v0)

Install cloudflared, then:

cloudflared tunnel --url http://127.0.0.1:53210

It prints a public URL like https://salt-fish-bottle-9742.trycloudflare.com. Copy it.

Ephemeral URLs

Quick tunnels rotate every time you re-run cloudflared. Fine for trying it out; for a permanent setup, run cloudflared tunnel login and create a named tunnel — the URL stays stable across restarts. See Cloudflare's named-tunnel docs.

Tailscale Funnel (stable URL, no public exposure surface)

If your PC is on a Tailscale net:

tailscale funnel 53210

This gives you https://<machine>.<tailnet>.ts.net, with TLS terminated by Tailscale. The URL is stable as long as the machine stays in the tailnet.

LAN only

Same WiFi, no internet exposure? Bind a LAN IP via your router's DHCP reservation and point the phone at http://192.168.x.y:53210 directly. Skips the tunnel entirely. No HTTPS — fine for home, don't do it on coffee-shop WiFi.

4. Generate the pairing payload

Back in desktop Settings → Local API → Remote access from Tokori Mobile:

1. Paste the tunnel URL into "Paste the tunnel URL".

2. The "Pairing payload" panel below renders a JSON blob:

   {
     "url": "https://salt-fish-bottle-9742.trycloudflare.com",
     "token": "p7K9_…"
   }

3. Copy it.

The blob is the URL + token in one piece so you don't need to type either by hand on the phone.

5. Pair the phone

On mobile: More → Connect to PC → Paste, then Save & connect. The app pings /v1/remote/info; on success it shows your desktop's hostname.

You can now toggle "Use PC for chat" without unpairing — the config sticks, the switch just controls whether the Chat tab routes through the PC or stays cloud-only.

6. Chat

The mobile Chat tab now streams from your PC. Each message round- trips: phone → tunnel → desktop → provider → desktop → tunnel → phone.

Security

Treat the pairing payload like a password

Anyone with the {url, token} blob can talk to your PC and use your provider quota. Don't paste it into a public Slack.

Token rotation: Settings → Local API → Stop, then Start generates a fresh token. The phone will need a new pairing payload. The old one becomes useless the moment the server restarts.

Authentication is a constant-time bearer compare — same as the rest of the local API. There is no IP allow-list (your tunnel URL is the moat). If you need stricter scoping, run a named cloudflared tunnel behind an Access policy, or use Tailscale Funnel which already gates on identity.

Troubleshooting

Phone says "Can't reach the desktop"

• Is the desktop's local API actually running? (Settings → Local API shows a green "Running" pill.)
• Did the cloudflared tunnel terminate? Quick tunnels die when you close the terminal. Re-run it and update the pairing payload (the URL changes).
• Hit the tunnel URL from a browser: https://your-tunnel/v1/health should return {"status":"ok",…}. If that fails, the tunnel is down. If it succeeds but the app still can't reach it, your bearer token is stale — re-pair.

Phone says "No active provider on the desktop"

The desktop's active provider is null or set to Tokori Cloud. Open Settings → Providers on the desktop and pick a local one (Ollama, OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Minimax).

Phone says "Active provider is Tokori Cloud"

Switch the desktop's active provider to a non-cloud option. Cloud calls don't go through the desktop relay — they hit api.tokori.ai directly from the phone.

Replies are slow on Ollama

The first request after starting Ollama loads the model into VRAM — expect ~5–20s of cold-start, then subsequent messages stream immediately. The desktop pre-warms Ollama on provider switch; if you just rebooted, send one message in the desktop chat first to prime the cache.

Chat works but I want history persisted

v0 mobile chat is ephemeral — messages live in memory until you leave the screen. Persisted history is on the roadmap; it'll route through the cloud's chats table the same way the desktop's chat view does.

Limits in v0

• No QR scan for pairing — paste-only. Adding it is a one-screen swap, just hasn't shipped yet.
• No mobile push notifications when a long-running completion finishes. If the screen sleeps mid-stream, the connection closes and you lose the unflushed remainder. Keep the app foregrounded for now.
• Cloudflared quick tunnels are ephemeral. Named tunnels or Tailscale Funnel give you a stable URL.
• One provider at a time. The desktop's active provider is what runs; switching it in desktop Settings instantly changes what the phone uses on the next message.
• No streaming history rewrite. If you switch providers mid-conversation, the next reply might surprise you because the new model didn't see the previous turns it can now read.