Tactic Remote 1.6.1: Native Text Selection and Faster First-Time Setup

v1.6.1 focuses on two parts of the product that shape first impressions: terminal interaction and first-time setup. The goal was straightforward: make the terminal behave like a real iOS surface, and make a new machine easy to connect without sending people through a long setup checklist.

Native Text Selection

This is the biggest user-facing change in this release.

Previously, terminal output in Tactic Remote was rendered as static text — you could read it, but you could not select or copy from it. That was a real friction point, especially when Claude outputs a command, a URL, or a code snippet you want to use.

Long-press anywhere in the terminal to begin selecting. The standard iOS selection handles appear, and you can copy the selected text the same way you would in any other iOS app. Paste targets work too — Messages, Notes, your editor of choice.

Under the hood, this required rebuilding the terminal renderer. The previous implementation used SwiftUI Text views, which give you layout flexibility but no selection support. The new renderer is built on UIKit UITextView with a custom ANSI escape code parser. It handles 16-color, 256-color, and full 24-bit truecolor sequences, so your syntax-highlighted output and colored diffs render correctly while remaining fully selectable.

Getting Started in 30 Seconds

The other major change is how you connect a new server.

When you open the server list with no servers configured, you now see a "Connect Your Computer" card. It shows the exact command to run, npx tacticremote, directly in the app. Run that command on your Mac or Linux machine and the server starts, then prints a QR code in your terminal.

Scan that QR code from Tactic Remote and the server is saved automatically. You are in.

Combined with the CLI path introduced in v1.6.0, the new onboarding flow is simple: run one command, scan one QR code, and connect. No account creation. No manual IP entry. No port-forwarding work unless you explicitly want remote access outside your local network.

If you already have a server added, the card stays out of your way — it only appears on an empty server list.

Security Improvements

This release includes several hardening changes on the server side:

• Path validation is now stricter for git_info requests, preventing traversal outside the working directory.
• Upload concurrency is capped to prevent resource exhaustion from parallel upload requests.
• Hook script inputs are sanitized before being passed to shell execution.

See the 1.6.1 changelog for the full list of security-related changes.

Bug Fixes

• Microphone access is now properly released when leaving the Chat screen. Previously, the microphone session could remain open after navigating away, which showed a persistent indicator in the iOS status bar.
• Connection state is now correctly synchronized when switching between servers in quick succession. A race condition could leave the UI showing a stale connected state after switching away.

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v1.6.1 is available now on the /download page. If you use the CLI path, rerunning npx tacticremote downloads the matching binary on first launch and reuses the cached copy after that.