CLIque for Android
A native Android client for CLIque, the self-hosted panel that runs folder-organised coding sessions in tmux.
The prompt is a real Android EditText. That is the point of the app. The panel's website types into a field inside a WebView, and Android keyboards fight that field. This client does not wrap the website. Native chrome, native input, and the panel's xterm.js pane for the terminal.
MIT, matching the server. Built to go on F-Droid: no Play Services, no Firebase, no analytics.
The panel it drives is CLIque, a Python standard-library server that keeps CLI sessions alive in tmux. This app talks to its HTTP API and nothing else, so it works against any panel you can reach.
Pairing
On the laptop, ask the panel for a pairing code (POST /api/pair, or the button in the web UI). On the phone: add the panel URL, tap Pair, type the code. Case and the dash are ignored. The token is stored in EncryptedSharedPreferences, one per server.
Installing
Add our F-Droid repository once and updates arrive on their own:
https://fdroid.useclique.dev/repo
The /repo matters. Detail, including the one-time uninstall if you already
sideloaded a build: docs/fdroid-repo.md.
Screens
- Servers — add, edit, remove. Reachability from
GET /healthz.
- Sessions — Running first, then Ungrouped, then folders, then Archived, matching the web sidebar; pinned float. Opens on running sessions only, with a toolbar toggle for all and a search over name, directory and branch. A typed search overrides the filter, because the session you are looking for is often a stopped one. Pull to refresh; polls every 3s while visible.
- Session — terminal in a WebView, native prompt bar pinned above the keyboard with WindowInsets. Send button, and Enter sends (Shift+Enter for a newline). A key bar above the prompt sends one bare tmux key: Esc, ^C, Tab, up, down, Enter. Above the key bar, one-tap buttons for any snippet flagged "bar" in the web panel's Settings > Snippets — managed there only, read-only here, and built once when the session screen opens (reopen the session to pick up a snippet added mid-session). Select text in the overflow menu lifts the last 500 rows into an ordinary Android text box, so the output can be selected with the usual handles and copied, shared or copied whole. The pane itself stays untouchable on purpose: xterm's hidden input field is what Android keyboards fight, and it stays inert.
- Notification when a session that was working stops, from
GET /api/sessions/<id>/wait. When it stopped to ask permission, that notification carries Approve and Deny, which send Enter and Escape without opening the app. That indirection is the point: opening a session attaches a tmux client, the pane repaints, and the panel reads output-after-a-signal as the session having carried on, so the signal is gone in under three seconds.
Foreground service
A foreground service (dataSync) runs while the app is waiting on /wait. That call holds a connection for up to 300 seconds, and a backgrounded app will not keep it. The service stops when nothing is being watched.
Private CA and VPN
HTTPS still validates certificates. A private CA can be installed in Android's user CA store (this app trusts user CAs) or pasted as PEM on the server row. There is no "trust all" switch. HTTP is allowed because a panel on a Tailscale or WireGuard tailnet is often http://.
Build
SDK 35, build-tools 35.0.0, JDK 21. Gradle wrapper is in the tree.
export ANDROID_HOME=/opt/android-sdk
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-21-openjdk-amd64
./gradlew assembleDebug
The APK lands at app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk.
Dependencies
Each one had to earn its place:
| Library | Why |
|---|
| AndroidX AppCompat, Fragment, RecyclerView, SwipeRefresh, ConstraintLayout, Core, Lifecycle, Activity | Platform UI. |
androidx.security:security-crypto | Named in the spec for the token store. |
| OkHttp | REST and the /ws terminal stream. HttpURLConnection cannot do WebSockets, and one client carries the per-server CA for both. No Retrofit. |
| kotlinx-coroutines | lifecycleScope for UI work off the main thread. |
| xterm.js (built from source, MIT) | The panel's terminal renderer. Display only; stdin is disabled. |
org.json:json (tests only) | android.jar's org.json throws Stub! on the JVM, so the response parsers could not be tested at all. Test classpath only, never in the APK. |
xterm.js, built from source
The JS under app/src/main/assets/vendor/ is not committed. ./gradlew assembleDebug
runs tools/build-xterm.sh when those files are missing: it clones xterm.js
at tag 5.5.0 (the same pin as the CLIque server), builds core plus the fit,
unicode11 and canvas addons, and copies the UMD bundles into vendor/. A later
build that already has the files does not use the network, so --offline still
works.
F-Droid does the same in the recipe (sudo: apt-get install -y npm, then the
script as prebuild). xterm.LICENSE stays in the tree.
What this pass does not do
It pairs, lists sessions, opens a terminal, and sends a prompt. It does not reimplement the rest of the web panel (files, artifacts, broadcast, notes, settings). Those stay on the laptop.
License
MIT. See LICENSE. xterm.js is MIT; see app/src/main/assets/vendor/xterm.LICENSE.
