Drover

Appearance

Drover — Support ​

Drover lets you supervise and steer AI coding agents running on your own computer, from your phone.

Contact: kei.sj.nstn@gmail.com — this is the fastest way to reach the developer. You can also open an issue at https://github.com/keinstn/drover/issues.

Please include your Drover version (Settings → About), your iOS version, and what you were doing when the problem happened.

What you need to use Drover ​

Drover is a client for a machine you already own. It does not work on its own. You need:

  1. A computer running Herdr with your coding agents in it.
  2. SSH access to that machine with key-based authentication.
    • macOS: System Settings → General → Sharing → Remote Login.
    • Windows: install the OpenSSH Server feature. For an administrator account the public key must go in C:\ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys, not ~\.ssh\authorized_keys — otherwise the connection fails with "All authentication methods failed".
  3. Herdr 0.8.0 or newer on that machine. Drover enforces this — starting an agent on an older Herdr fails. agent prompt and the --pane / --until command shapes Drover relies on only exist from 0.7.5, and from 0.8.0 Herdr reports a stopped background server clearly enough for Drover to say so, instead of showing an error that reads like a network failure.

If you just want to see what Drover does before setting any of this up, use the demo on the setup screen. It runs entirely on your device with sample data.

Common problems ​

"Connection closed before authentication" Something on the host is answering the SSH port before the operating system's SSH server does, so the OS never sees the connection. The usual cause is Tailscale SSH, whose connection check intercepts the session — turn Tailscale SSH off for that machine, or connect on the machine's regular SSH port instead. Being on a VPN is not itself a problem: Drover works fine over one, so check for something intercepting the port rather than the VPN.

The transcript shows raw terminal text instead of a readable chat Drover reads your agent's own session history when a Herdr integration is installed for that agent. Install one on the host:

sh
herdr integration install claude
herdr integration install codex
herdr integration install copilot

An integration only takes effect for sessions started after you install it, so start a fresh agent session afterwards. Without an integration, Drover falls back to reading the terminal pane, which is bounded by how much scrollback Herdr retains.

Dictation will not start Drover only uses on-device speech recognition. If your device cannot perform recognition on-device, Drover will not fall back to server-based recognition, so dictation is unavailable. Check that the recognition language is downloaded in iOS Settings.

Notifications do not arrive Notifications require pairing a host, which needs the drover.notify Herdr plugin installed on that machine. See the notification setup documentation at https://github.com/keinstn/drover. Only blocked events send a notification — Drover does not notify you when an agent finishes.

Privacy ​

Drover connects directly from your device to your own machine. Your transcripts, commands, and code never reach the developer. See the privacy policy.

Documentation ​

Full setup and command reference: https://github.com/keinstn/drover