How We Design Mobile-First Devtools UX

A terminal mirror is accurate but often unreadable on a phone. A pure chat view is clean but can hide operational state. Mobile devtools UX has to respect both truths.

Principle 1: Preserve operational truth

Users need to clearly understand:

• Which session they are in.
• Whether Claude is already running.
• What state the current task is in.

Any abstraction that hides these facts creates confidence debt.

Principle 2: Reduce error cost, not user freedom

Instead of blocking advanced behavior, we reduce avoidable mistakes:

• First-run hints for session selection and start flow.
• Reconnect context restoration to avoid blank-state confusion.
• Guardrails to prevent duplicate start commands.

Principle 3: Notifications should close loops

A mobile workflow needs explicit closure signals. Completion events should map cleanly to user intent and avoid dumping model text into push content.

High-signal notification copy is better than noisy detail.

Principle 4: Prefer progressive complexity

Default mode should support the common path quickly. Advanced terminal interaction should remain available when users need precise control.

This is not "simple vs powerful." It is power with staged complexity.