Clix

Your machines. The tools you grant.

Run tools on your other machines without opening a login session.

Pair your machines, then grant the tools you want each one to make available. You can limit a grant to particular paired machines, set an expiry, or allow one successful run. Use the same commands yourself, in scripts, or through an agent.

For example, after pairing and granting adb on the laptop, run this from the server:

clix laptop adb devices

That runs the laptop's adb and returns its output to your normal shell. The command stays on the machine you named. Clix calls a tool grant a hand; you add or revoke it on the machine that has the tool. Nothing granted means nothing runs through Clix.

Experimental, Linux today. Tested on a real CachyOS (Arch-derived) laptop and Debian 13.6 server, including denial, single-use grants and delivery after daemon restarts. The full v0 design is unfinished. See current proof and remaining work.

Try it

On each machine, use a Linux Rust toolchain, a C compiler/linker, and a working systemd user manager. Build from this checkout, with Cargo's install directory on your PATH:

cargo install --locked --path .
clix install

clix install creates and starts a systemd user service pointing at the binary you ran; keep that binary in place. Both machines need Tailscale running and reachable over their tailnet for pairing and remote work. Local owner controls remain available when Tailscale is off. Desktop notifications and the tray use the session D-Bus; the terminal commands also work headlessly.

After upgrading the binary, restart the service with systemctl --user restart clix.service. Upgrade the CLI and daemon together; upgrade paired machines together for shared history. Back up Clix's state and ~/src/.clix-recovery before upgrading. Older binaries cannot safely operate on the new recovery phases; restoring a pre-upgrade backup also loses later replay receipts. See operation and recovery.

Before pairing: Clix automatically pins ~/src on both machines. Pairing and each remote execution synchronize that directory in both directions, including deletions after a shared baseline. Review its contents first. Conflicts stop sync and remote execution; there is no automatic merge. Existing grants without --allow also apply to newly paired machines. A pin failure after pairing can leave the pairing saved; read the error and clix status before retrying. See the pin limits below.

For example, first confirm adb devices works locally on the laptop. To use that installed tool from a server, start on the laptop:

clix pair --name laptop

Keep that command open. On the server, replace PRINTED-PHRASE with the phrase the laptop displays:

clix pair 'PRINTED-PHRASE' --name server
clix status

Then grant the tool locally on the laptop:

clix add adb --allow server
clix hands

From the server:

clix laptop adb devices
clix log

These are example names. Without --name, pairing uses the hostname; clix status shows this machine and its paired names. Use the actual target name in remote commands. On this machine, run tools normally. If a body's name matches a Clix command, use clix -- BODY TOOL ARG…. This explicit form preserves tool arguments, including --no-wait; place Clix's own --no-wait before -- when needed.

Grants and authority

Without --allow, an added tool is available to every paired machine. --once permits one successful run; --for 2h limits the grant's lifetime. Revoke a grant on the machine that added it with clix remove adb. You can also pass its stored executable path, even after that file is deleted. A different executable with the same basename is not a matching path.

A grant exposes the binary's capabilities under the owner's account. Clix does not constrain its arguments or sandbox its subprocesses, files or network access. Granting a shell, interpreter or another tool that runs arbitrary code can give broad account access. Attribution identifies the paired machine, not the individual human or agent using it.

The local owner account is trusted. A process with unrestricted access as that Unix user can use owner controls and read owner keys. Clix restricts remote tool access; it does not isolate an agent already running as the local owner. An agent is optional, and approval happens on the machine granting the tool.

Waiting and requests

Offline jobs and explicit requests are saved on the caller and retried after restart. clix --no-wait laptop adb devices prints the job ID while the job is waiting or running; an already-completed command returns its result. clix request laptop adb asks for permission without executing. The owner handles requests on the target through native notifications, the tray, or the terminal:

clix pending
clix allow REQUEST_ID
# Or: clix deny REQUEST_ID

Copy the ID printed by clix pending. Terminal approval defaults to one successful run by the requester. Grant flags select permitted paired machines and set a duration. Native Allow once has the same requester scope; native Allow grants all paired machines until revoked. A grant change or revocation invalidates older pending IDs for that tool. Stale actions fail without selecting another request or overwriting the newer owner decision.

A restarted runner reports an interrupted job as uncertain and retains its single-use reservation. Inspect the actual command's effects before replacing that grant. Output is captured as bytes, up to 4 MiB per stream; exceeding the limit reports capture failure. clix log shows locally known jobs; it is not an instantaneous view of disconnected machines. Signed history converges among paired machines, including local Clix jobs and failures before execution. Imported history never grants permission or schedules a job. Authors must be explicitly paired to verify their records; the CLI reports incomplete history. Older records are labelled as observations by the machine that retained them.

Inspect a job, retrieve its saved bytes, or explicitly create a new attempt:

clix job inspect JOB_ID
clix job output JOB_ID
clix job output JOB_ID --stderr
clix job retry JOB_ID

A retry is available on the original caller. It gets a new ID linked to the old attempt and checks the current grant. It preserves any uncertain once reservation. Saved output has a retention budget; outcomes, output digests and replay receipts remain after output is pruned.

Current pin limits

Pin supports regular files with UTF-8 paths, at most 16 MiB per file. Symlinks, special files, and file/directory replacement are unsupported. Sync runs at pairing, before remote execution, and when you run clix pin sync BODY. It is not continuous background replication. A scan supports up to 4096 entries and 64 levels of directories.

Displaced files and receipts remain in ~/src/.clix-recovery. A pending receipt or later edit to a retained inode stops further sync until the owner reviews it. Use clix pin recovery list and clix pin recovery inspect ID to review retained versions. Recovery decisions require the token from that inspection; changed versions require a fresh decision. Nothing retained is automatically deleted. New pin work stops at the recovery admission budget of 256 MiB or 4096 entries, with reserved space for recovery metadata. External writers can still grow retained inodes; this is not a filesystem quota. Pin will not replace an actively granted executable; remove its grant, sync and review the replacement, then add it again. See operation and recovery for export, resolution, disposal and the remaining operating limits.

Clix admits at most four directly launched tools per sidecar and bounds network and waiting-client concurrency. Busy jobs remain queued under the same ID. State has a 128 MiB encoded limit and a 16 MiB retained-output budget, with space reserved for admitted outcomes. Execution and request receipts are kept to reject replays; their count limits eventually stop new admissions. clix storage status shows usage. This is an initial bounded operating policy, not a claim of indefinite retention, process sandboxing or proved production scale.

For development, see CONTRIBUTING.md. Report security issues using SECURITY.md.

License

Copyright 2026 nicholasraimbault. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.