dm-other-claudes — Cross-Claude Communication

Send tasks to Claude Code instances on remote machines. Enables Claude-to-Claude collaboration over SSH with session continuity.

How It Works

┌─────────────────┐         SSH + stdin          ┌─────────────────┐
│  Claude (TUI)   │ ──────────────────────────>  │  Claude (-p)    │
│  interactive     │                              │  non-interactive │
│  with human     │  <────────────────────────── │  on remote host  │
│                 │     JSON response + session   │                 │
└─────────────────┘                              └─────────────────┘

1. Calling side (you, in the TUI): Invokes dm-claude.ts via Bash tool
2. Remote side: Runs claude -p --output-format json on the target machine
3. Session tracking: Remote Claude's session ID is captured for follow-ups
4. Preamble: Auto-prepended context tells the remote Claude it's receiving a cross-Claude task

Setup

Prerequisites

• Bun installed locally
• Claude Code CLI installed on both local and remote machines
• SSH access to the remote machine(s) (key-based auth recommended)

Installation

If the user asks you to install/set up this skill, ask them:

1. Where are your other Claude Code agents running? (e.g., user@hostname or user@ip)
2. Do you have SSH key-based auth to those machines, or do you need to set it up?
3. Does the remote machine have Claude Code CLI installed and authenticated?

Then configure the skill with their specific hosts and update the examples below accordingly.

1. Copy dm-claude.ts and SKILL.md into your Claude Code skills directory:

   mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes
   cp dm-claude.ts SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/

2. Add a reference to this skill in your CLAUDE.md or project instructions so Claude knows how to use it. Example entry:

   ### Cross-Claude Communication
   - Tool: `bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts`
   - Remote hosts:
     - `user@your-server-ip` — description of what runs there
   - Use `--skip-permissions` for autonomous tasks (no human on the remote end to approve)
   - Use `-s SESSION_ID` for follow-ups

3. Verify SSH connectivity:

   ssh user@your-server "claude --version"

Usage

Tool Location

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts [options] <user@host> "prompt"

New Conversation

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts user@server "check if the web server is running and healthy"

Continue Conversation (with session ID from previous call)

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts -s SESSION_ID user@server "now restart it"

Fully Autonomous Remote Task

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts --skip-permissions user@server "pull latest code and redeploy the service"

Options

Flag	Description
-s, --session <id>	Resume a previous session on the remote
-t, --timeout <sec>	Timeout in seconds (default: 600 / 10min)
-f, --file <path>	Read prompt from a file
--skip-permissions	Add --dangerously-skip-permissions on remote (needed for autonomous tool use)
--max-turns <n>	Limit how many tool-use turns the remote Claude can take
--model <model>	Override the remote Claude's model
-v, --verbose	Debug output

How to Use From the TUI (Instructions for Claude)

When you (Claude in TUI) need to delegate work to a remote machine:

Step 1: Send the initial task

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts --skip-permissions user@server "your task description here"

The tool outputs:

• stdout: The remote Claude's response text
• stderr: Metadata including session_id and cost

Step 2: Process the response

Read the response. If you need to follow up:

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts -s SESSION_ID user@server "follow-up question or next task"

Step 3: Report back to the user

Once the collaboration is complete, summarize what happened.

Multi-Turn Pattern

For complex tasks that need back-and-forth:

# Pseudocode for the pattern
response1 = dm-claude(host, "analyze the logs on this machine")
# Parse response1, extract session_id
response2 = dm-claude(host, session=sid, "now restart the failing service")
# Parse response2
response3 = dm-claude(host, session=sid, "confirm it's healthy")
# Report combined results to user

What the Remote Claude Sees

The tool auto-prepends a preamble to the first message explaining:

• This is a cross-Claude communication
• The calling Claude is working with a human in a TUI
• It should be thorough but concise
• It should complete the task autonomously
• Follow-ups may arrive via --resume

On follow-up messages (--session), no preamble is added — the remote Claude already has the context from the resumed session.

Important Notes

1. Always use --skip-permissions for autonomous tasks — without it, the remote Claude may not be able to use tools that require permission prompts (since there's no human on the remote end to approve)

2. Use IP addresses if hostname resolution is unreliable — if you have flaky DNS, use the IP directly (e.g., user@192.168.1.100 instead of user@myserver)

3. Timeout — default is 10 minutes. For long tasks, increase with -t 1200 or more

4. Session IDs live on the remote machine — they reference Claude sessions stored in ~/.claude/ on the remote host. The session ID only works with the same user@host

5. Cost awareness — each dm-claude call is a separate Claude API call on the remote machine. The tool reports cost in stderr

6. The remote Claude has its own CLAUDE.md and skills — it will follow its own instructions on that machine

Common Patterns

Delegate a task to a remote server

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts --skip-permissions user@server \
  "Check the disk usage on /var and clean up any log files older than 7 days"

Check on a service

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts user@server \
  "Is the API server running? Check with curl localhost:8080/health and show me the process"

Deploy code

bun run ~/.claude/skills/dm-other-claudes/dm-claude.ts --skip-permissions user@server \
  "cd ~/myapp && git pull && npm install && pm2 restart myapp"

Parallel work across multiple machines

Use the Bash tool's run_in_background to send tasks to multiple machines simultaneously:

# In parallel:
bun run dm-claude.ts --skip-permissions user@server1 "task for server 1"
bun run dm-claude.ts --skip-permissions user@server2 "task for server 2"