DON'T PANIC, Part 2: My iPad App Now Runs the PC (a Little)

Last week I built The Hitchhiker's Guide: an iPad home-screen app with a big friendly DON'T PANIC on it. Tap it, pick a character, chat.

Every answer comes from AIs on my own PC: Claude, free cloud AIs, and local models on my one graphics card. The iPad is just the window.

Today it grew up a little.

Status Strip

Status strip: CPU and GPU temps, memory, when the last backup finished, and whether the internet is up. It goes red only when something is actually wrong. No red, no worries.

PC Buttons

PC buttons: exactly four.

• Back up now.
• Put the local AIs to sleep (frees the graphics card).
• Lock the PC.
• Say something out loud on the PC speakers.

That's the whole list. The iPad can't run anything else, on purpose.

Three Claude Helpers

Three Claude helpers, talk-only: a planner, a Linux tutor, and a notes keeper. From the iPad they can talk and read. They can't run commands, edit files or browse.

Keeps the PC awake while I'm using it, so the PC doesn't nod off mid-conversation. The screen still locks.

Security Pass

Security pass: I had it reviewed. The big fix: chat text now goes to Claude through the front door (stdin), never on the command line, so a sneaky message can't pretend to be a setting. Plus size checks, stricter browser headers, and one spoken message at a time.

Still private by design: it only answers my own PC and my own Tailscale devices, and only with a key.

One GPU. Zero dollars. Zero excuses.

Code: https://github.com/2db2du-byte/hitchhikers-guide

Everything else I build: https://2db2du-byte.github.io