How to use VS Code on an iPad without Codespaces or code-server

Most “VS Code on iPad” guides send you down one of two roads: pay for a cloud environment like GitHub Codespaces that runs a clone of your repo, or self-host code-serverbehind your own TLS certificate and reverse proxy. Both leave you editing something that isn’t the machine you actually work on.

There’s a third road: remote-control the VS Code that’s already running on your computer, with your real local state — the uncommitted changes, the running dev server, the environment you already configured. That’s what CodeMote does, and there’s no cloud VM and no server to host.

The three approaches, briefly

• Codespaces — a cloud VM runs a checkout of your repo. Great for disposable, standardised environments; your code lives on a third-party server.
• code-server — you run VS Code in a browser off your own server. Powerful, but you own the TLS, the reverse proxy and the patching.
• CodeMote — a native iPad app that pairs with your real machine over a QR scan. Nothing hosted, no cloud copy.

Set it up on your iPad

Install Microsoft’s free devtunnel CLI on your computer once, add the CodeMote extension to VS Code, then run CodeMote: Start Mobile Session and scan the QR code with the iPad app:

No port forwarding, no VPN, no static IP — it works over Wi-Fi or cellular because the link is tunnelled.

What you get on the iPad

• Files — the full project tree, edited exactly as it sits on disk.
• Terminals — persistent shells that survive backgrounding, so dev servers keep running.
• Git — stage, diff, commit, push and branch from a real UI.
• AI agents — start and supervise Claude Code and other desktop agents.

Want the trade-offs spelled out? See CodeMote vs Codespaces and CodeMote vs code-server.