Claude Code now has three ways to work away from your terminal. They’re easy to mix up. Here’s how they actually differ.
Web (Dispatch) is the simplest one: Claude runs in the cloud, not on your machine. claude --remote "fix the auth bug" clones your GitHub repo into an Anthropic sandbox and works independently. Close your laptop, come back later, create a PR. You can run ten in parallel.
Remote Control and Channels are both local — your machine does the work. That’s where they diverge.
Remote Control is for when you want to keep steering a session from a different device. You started something at your desk, moved to the couch, and want to keep the conversation going from your phone. Open claude.ai/code or the Claude app, find your session, and pick up where you left off. You see Claude’s responses, you send the next message, you approve tool calls. It’s just a window into your running session — same conversation, different screen.
claude --remote-control "Refactor auth module"
# → session appears in claude.ai/code and the Claude mobile appChannels is for when you want something else to trigger Claude, not you. You’re not steering a session — you’re setting up a listener. A message comes in on Telegram, Claude processes it and replies back. A CI webhook fires at 3am, Claude reads the failure and starts debugging. You don’t have to be watching.
claude --channels plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official
# → Claude now reacts to messages sent to your Telegram botThe difference is clearest with examples:
You’re on the couch and want to ask “what’s left in this PR?” and read Claude’s answer in a chat thread — Channels. You’re on the couch and want to watch Claude work through a refactor step by step, sending follow-up messages as you read its output — Remote Control.
You want CI failures to automatically wake Claude up and post a diagnosis — Channels. You want to interrupt a running Claude session from your phone to say “actually, skip that file” — Remote Control.
Channels is reactive. Remote Control is interactive.
| Runs on | Good for | |
|---|---|---|
| Remote Control | your machine | steering a session from another device |
| Channels | your machine | reacting to external events (Telegram, webhooks) |
| Web | cloud | async tasks that don’t need local files |