The course · Module 11 · 4 lessons · Free · in Claude Code
Your butler on your phone
Your butler's private pages open on your phone, for your household only.
- Time
- About 60 minutes
- New this module
- Tailscale, a private network between your own devices
- You'll need
- Your iPhone or Android phone, and the other adults' phones
- A Tailscale account (free for personal use; check the current plans)
- In Claude Code, you'll type
/butler-setup phone
Your butler has a set of private web pages, which we call the portal: today, the week, money, budget, projects, lists and the Info page. In this module you make them open on your phone, from anywhere, without putting anything on the public internet.
This is the most technical module in the course, which is why it’s near the end. You already know everything you need.
Lesson 11.1 · 5 minutes
A private hallway between your devices
What you’ll do: understand how the portal stays private. Nothing to click.
Your butler’s portal runs on your Mac and only answers your Mac. Normally, that means you could only open it on the Mac itself.
Tailscale builds a private network between your own devices: your Mac, your phone and your partner’s phone. Think of it as a private hallway that connects your devices wherever they are, with a lock on every door. Nothing on the public internet can see the portal or reach it.
When you open the portal on your phone:
- Your phone walks down the private hallway to your Mac.
- Tailscale tells the portal who you are.
- The portal checks you’re on the household list, and lets you in.
Lesson 11.2 · 20 minutes
Install Tailscale everywhere
What you’ll do: install Tailscale on your Mac and every adult’s phone, all in one household network.
Steps
- On your Mac, go to tailscale.com/download and install Tailscale for macOS. Open it and sign in. Signing in with your Google or Apple account is easiest.
- Your Mac may ask permission to add a VPN configuration. Click Allow. Tailscale uses this to build the private hallway.
- On your phone, install Tailscale from the App Store or Google Play. Sign in with the same account.
- For the other adults: open the Tailscale admin console in your browser (login.tailscale.com/admin) and invite them by email. They install Tailscale on their phones and accept the invite.
- In the admin console, open DNS. Turn on MagicDNS, then turn on HTTPS Certificates. This gives your Mac a private web address with a padlock.
Lesson 11.3 · 15 minutes
Open the portal on your phone
What you’ll do: connect the portal to Tailscale, tell it who’s allowed in, and put it on your home screen.
Steps
- In Claude Code, in the Butler folder, type:
- Claude connects the portal to Tailscale and shows you its private address. It looks like
https://your-mac.your-tailnet.ts.net. - Claude asks for each adult’s Tailscale login, the email they signed in with, and adds them to the household list.
- On your phone, open that address in Safari or Chrome. You see your butler’s Today page.
- On iPhone, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, tap the menu, then Add to Home screen. Your butler now has an icon.
Lesson 11.4 · 10 minutes
A tour of the portal
What you’ll do: visit each page of the portal on your phone.
| Page | What it shows | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Today | This morning’s brief | Read it again |
| Week | The latest Sunday letter | Read it again |
| Last month | The monthly look-back | Read it again |
| Money | Every transaction this month, by category | Look things up |
| Budget | Your plan, as your butler reads it | Check the numbers |
| Projects | Every project, ranked by what can be done now | Done, pause, “checked today”, or send an update in your own words |
| Lists | Your butler’s Reminders lists | Add and tick off items |
| Info | Phone numbers, document expiry dates, and document numbers if you added them | Look things up. This page is never cached on your phone. |