Backseat

Backseat-drive your Cline coding agent from your phone.

Chat with your AI agent anywhere — your PC does the coding. You architect from the couch; Cline builds in VS Code. No servers, no open ports, no shared API keys. GitHub is the only wire.

you (phone) ──chat──▶ your agent (architect) ──git──▶ Backseat extension ──▶ Cline (builder)
   "add a login page"      queues tasks             runs them on your PC       in VS Code

What it does

Backseat turns a private GitHub repo into a task queue between you, your AI agent, and Cline:

• You describe work in plain language from your phone.
• Your agent writes it up as a task in your private bridge repo.
• This VS Code extension picks the task up and runs it in Cline's sidebar, visibly, with your existing Cline provider/model settings.
• Status, heartbeats, failures, and finished summaries flow back through the repo so your agent can report like a human would.

Bring your own agent. Backseat is an open protocol (git + JSON), not a Claude product. It was designed and dogfooded with Muse driving, but any agentic AI that can clone a repo and push commits — Muse, Grok, Dots, Clawdbot, your own — can take the architect seat. This extension can't tell who's at the wheel, and doesn't care.

The unglamorous parts are the point: provider-error auto-retries, session re-adoption after VS Code restarts, remote cancel from your phone, and a setup doctor that tells you exactly which link in the chain is broken.

Setup

1. Create your private copy of the bridge template: https://github.com/darek225/backseat → Use this template → private repo.
2. Paste your new repo link into your agent (Muse, Grok, …) and say: "set up Backseat with this repo." Your agent reads MUSE.md (or AGENTS.md), clones your copy, and starts watching for work.
3. Install this extension, install/sign in to Cline, and open the Backseat tab in the VS Code activity bar.
4. Put your private repo (owner/repo) and an unguessable ping topic in the setup card, hit Save & connect, then run Backseat: Run setup doctor.

No settings JSON spelunking. No terminal window babysitting.

Commands

• Backseat: Start polling
• Backseat: Stop polling
• Backseat: Check for tasks now
• Backseat: Show status
• Backseat: Run setup doctor

How it drives Cline

Preferred path: Backseat activates the Cline extension (saoudrizwan.claude-dev) and starts the task in Cline's sidebar via startNewTask, so you can watch the work happen at chat speed.

Fallback path: if the extension API shape is not available, Backseat uses the documented headless Cline CLI (cline --yolo) in the task's project directory. Once a task starts on one path, Backseat stays on that path — it never runs the same prompt twice.

Security model

• Auto-approve is the point — and the risk. Only queue work you would let run unsupervised, pointed at project directories you trust.
• No secrets in the repo. Tasks carry prompts and paths only. Your model keys stay in Cline's own config on your PC.
• No open ports. The extension only makes outbound git calls to GitHub.
• Private repo = pairing. Only your agent knows the repo, only your PC has it cloned with your credentials, and only your VS Code runs Backseat against it.

Limitations

• Your PC must be on and awake with VS Code open. Asleep means queued tasks wait.
• One task at a time per PC.
• Do not add collaborators you do not fully trust: anyone with write access to the bridge repo can queue tasks that run code on your PC.

Support

Issues and source: https://github.com/darek225/backseat

MIT licensed.