claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Desktop app sessions don't honor remoteControlAtStartup setting

Summary

Sessions launched from the Claude desktop app do not auto-enable Remote Control, even with "remoteControlAtStartup": true set in ~/.claude/settings.json. Only sessions launched from a regular terminal (the claude CLI) respect the setting and become visible from the mobile app / claude.ai/code.

This is a problem because the desktop app is where many users (myself included) do all of their work — so the setting effectively does nothing in practice.

Repro

1. Set "remoteControlAtStartup": true in ~/.claude/settings.json.
2. Open a session in the Claude desktop app (macOS, in my case).
3. Open Claude Code on phone (or claude.ai/code) signed in with the same account.
4. Session does NOT appear.
5. Now run claude from a normal terminal in the same project — that session DOES appear on phone immediately.

Evidence

The session metadata at ~/.claude/sessions/<pid>.json shows the entrypoint differs:

Desktop-launched (not visible on phone):

{"entrypoint":"claude-desktop","version":"2.1.128", ...}

Terminal-launched (visible on phone):

{"entrypoint":"cli","version":"2.1.132", ...}

Two things worth noting:

• The claude-desktop entrypoint appears to skip whatever wiring reads remoteControlAtStartup.
• The desktop app pins its own bundled Claude Code version (2.1.128 here), which lags behind the CLI on PATH (2.1.132). If Remote Control needs ≥2.1.51 that's fine, but it does mean fixes ship to the desktop app on a different cadence.

Environment

• macOS (Darwin 25.4.0)
• Claude Code CLI: 2.1.132
• Claude Desktop bundled CLI: 2.1.128
• ~/.claude/settings.json contains "remoteControlAtStartup": true

Expected

Desktop-app-launched sessions should honor remoteControlAtStartup the same way CLI-launched sessions do, so they appear on the phone without needing a manual /remote-control toggle every time.

Workaround

Launch sessions from a terminal instead of the desktop app for anything I want on my phone.