Run Sourcegraph Amp CLI on Your Phone (iPhone + Android)

Sourcegraph Amp is a terminal CLI that runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows via WSL, with no iPhone or Android app. So to run Amp CLI on your phone you put it on a real Linux machine and reach it. The fastest way: install Cosyra for iOS or Cosyra for Android, then npm install -g @ampcode/cli in the terminal (Node is already there), run amp login, and launch amp. Amp also has a mobile surface, but it only remote-controls a thread whose CLI runs on your own desktop. Here is each path, and what we actually tested.

This guide was written by the Cosyra team. We checked every moving part against primary sources on 2026-07-16: Amp's own manual for supported OSes, install commands, and billing; its changelog for the free-tier and package-rename dates; the npm registry metadata for the package layout; and gh api repos/sourcegraph/amp, which returns 404, so Amp is proprietary, with no public repo. And rather than assume the install works, we ran it.

What is Sourcegraph Amp?

Amp is Sourcegraph's frontier coding agent for the terminal. You describe a task, and it plans, edits files across a repo, runs commands and tests, and iterates. That is the same shape as Claude Code or Copilot CLI, from the company whose day job is code search over large codebases. It ships as the npm package @ampcode/cli (renamed from @sourcegraph/amp on 2026-05-14) and launches with the amp command.

• Platforms: macOS, Linux, and Windows via WSL. Android and iOS are absent from the manual's supported-OS list, so there is no mobile runtime.
• Not BYOK: you buy Amp credits and Amp picks and routes the model per request across three modes (deep, smart, rush). You do not paste your own provider key.
• Versioning: Amp uses epoch build strings, not semver. The latest we saw was 0.0.1784160980-g752308, published the same day we tested. It ships daily, so we cite the date instead of pinning a number.
• Free tier: $10/day across any mode, ad-free since 2026-03-30; usage-based beyond that, $5 minimum credit.

Because amp is a binary that expects a real shell, it has the same mobile problem as every other coding CLI: the phone is the wrong place to run the process. The trick is putting the process somewhere real, then driving it from the phone.

The official "Amp on mobile" is remote control, not the CLI on your phone

This is the part that trips people up. Amp's manual describes a remote-control feature: you start a thread in the CLI, open that same thread on ampcode.com from a phone browser or desktop, and send messages to keep working from anywhere. It is genuinely useful, and you can nudge a run from the couch. But the manual is explicit about the architecture: the thread's CLI runs on the machine that started it. The phone is a window onto a session executing elsewhere.

So remote control needs a desktop you left awake and online. If it sleeps or drops its connection, the thread is unreachable until the machine is back. If you have a Mac or PC sitting powered-on at home, that fits fine. If you do not, and the phone is the only device you have on the train, it does not help, and that is exactly the gap a cloud container fills. We map this remote-control-versus-cloud-container split across every agent in AI coding agents on mobile.

How can you run Amp CLI from a phone?

Three ways, in order of how well they work without a desktop: a cloud Ubuntu container where Amp actually runs (Cosyra), Amp's web remote control of a desktop session, and Termux on Android (where on-device execution is unverified today).

1. Cosyra: install Amp in a cloud container

Cosyra is a native iOS and Android terminal connected to a persistent Ubuntu 24.04 x86_64 container. Node is already installed, so npm install -g @ampcode/cli resolves the linux-x64 build and amp runs in the container, and nothing of yours has to stay awake. This is the path we captured above.

• Works when: you want Amp running on demand from either platform with no home machine to maintain.
• Breaks when: you have no internet, or you specifically need it reaching resources only on your desktop's local network.
• Cost: 1 hour free on signup, no credit card; a 10-hour, 7-day trial; then $29.99/month or $300/year. See pricing. Amp credits are billed separately by Amp.

2. Amp web remote control of a desktop session

The manual feature above. Best when you already run Amp on a desktop and just want to keep an eye on a thread or nudge it from your phone browser. Needs that desktop awake and online; the phone never runs the CLI itself.

3. Termux on Android: the honest state

We will not tell you Amp "runs on Termux" or "fails on Termux," because we have not run it on-device and the honest answer is: it is unverified. Here is the mechanism, so you can reason about it. Amp's npm package is a tiny launcher that pulls a platform-specific binary through optional dependencies:

There is a linux-arm64 build, so npm can resolve it on Termux's aarch64 userland. The catch is the same one that blocks other agent CLIs: prebuilt binaries are typically compiled against glibc, and Termux's userland uses Android's Bionic libc, which are not interchangeable in one process. npm resolving a package is not the same as the binary running. Until someone runs amp on-device in Termux and reports back, we are leaving it at unverified. These are the same process-lifetime and libc problems we cover in Cosyra vs Termux. A cloud x86_64 glibc container, where we did verify it, avoids the whole question.

How do you run Amp on iPhone or Android with Cosyra?

Four steps: install the app, install @ampcode/cli, authenticate with amp login, and run amp in a repo.

Step 1: Install Cosyra and sign in

Download from the App Store or Google Play. The container is Ubuntu 24.04 x86_64 with Node already installed, which is Amp's prerequisite.

Step 2: Install Amp CLI

Amp is not one of the four agents we pre-install (we ship Claude Code, Codex CLI, OpenCode, and Gemini CLI), but it is one command away because Node is already set up. This is the exact sequence from our capture.

Step 3: Authenticate with amp login

Run amp login and follow the prompt to sign in to your Amp account. Amp's own --help lists logout as "remove stored API key," so the credential persists in the container once you log in, so you do it once, not every session. Remember the billing model: this signs you into Amp's routed-model, credit-billed service, not a BYOK setup.

Step 4: Clone a repo and run Amp

Amp plans the change, shows the edits, and asks before running anything destructive. You review the diff on the phone before it lands. Reading an agent's proposed patch on a train is exactly the kind of small, bounded task the phone is good at. The persistent container means you can reopen the same workspace on an iPad later without re-cloning.

What are the real limits of running Amp on a phone?

• No offline mode. The container is in the cloud; no internet, no terminal.
• You are on Amp's credit meter. The container has its own cost, and Amp bills its routed-model credits separately: two meters, not one. The $10/day free tier covers light use.
• You cannot pin your own model. Amp routes deep/smart/rush for you. If you specifically want to force a model or use your own key, a BYOK CLI like OpenCode or Crush fits better.
• Phone keyboards slow long prompts. Voice dictation and a Bluetooth keyboard help a lot on longer instructions.

Here is the opinion Amp's team would push back on: for developers who already hold an Anthropic or OpenAI key, we think letting a tool pick your model and charging a second meter is friction, not convenience. You trade away the ability to pin a model for the convenience of not managing a key. Amp would call that a feature; we ship BYOK CLIs pre-installed because we would rather keep the control. If you do not want to manage keys at all, Amp's default is genuinely the lower-friction one, and that trade is the whole decision.

Cosyra vs Amp remote control vs Termux for Amp

Cosyra runs the CLI for real with nothing left awake; Amp's remote control is great if a desktop is already running the thread; Termux is unverified today. The table lines them up, verified 2026-07-16. For the deeper head-to-head — Amp's credit billing versus a BYOK container, model routing, and the two things Amp does better than us — read Cosyra vs Amp.

Prefer one of the agents that is pre-installed, or a BYOK setup where you pick the model? See Claude Code on phone, OpenCode on phone, and Gemini CLI on phone, or the pillar on AI coding agents on mobile. Another hosted tool whose "mobile" is a remote-control handoff rather than the CLI on the phone is GitHub Copilot CLI: same architecture, different vendor. Amp also publishes its own CLI examples and guides if you want to go deeper on what it can do once it is running.

Frequently asked questions