Support

cowboy for herdr

Cowboy shows the coding agents running in Herdr on a machine you can reach over SSH, and lets you answer them when you choose to. This page covers getting connected and the few things that can go wrong.

What you need

Herdr running on the machine, with the agents you want to watch started inside it.
SSH access to that machine from your phone: a private key you can paste, or Tailscale SSH, which needs no key at all.
socat or OpenBSD netcat on the machine. Cowboy uses it to reach Herdr's socket over the SSH connection. Most Linux and macOS setups have one already.

First connection

Open the hosts screen and tap [ + add ].
Enter your SSH login as the user, the machine's name or address as the host, and the port, usually 22. Paste a private key if you use one; leave it empty for Tailscale SSH.
Save. Cowboy connects straight away and the home screen fills with your agents.

Using Tailscale SSH? If your tailnet policy uses "check" mode, the very first connection shows a login link in the error text and in the hosts log. Open it on the phone, approve, then tap retry. Setting the policy's action to accept for your own devices avoids the prompt entirely.

When something is off

"connection failed" with a link in the message: the Tailscale check above.
"connection failed" without a link: the phone cannot reach the machine. Check that the VPN is connected, the address is right, and that you can ssh to it from elsewhere.
"host key changed": the machine's SSH identity is not the one Cowboy remembered. If you reinstalled or rotated keys, open the host's edit screen, tap [ forget saved host key ], and retry. If you did not, be suspicious before you do.
Connected, but no agents: Herdr is running but nothing is started inside it, or Herdr itself is not running. Start an agent on the machine; it shows up within seconds.
"output not refreshed · agent is mid-turn": normal while an agent is busy. The last output stays on screen; refresh again in a moment.
Keys or prompts do nothing: input is off. The bottom bar says read-only. Tap it, or the note under the output, and enable input. It switches itself off after ten minutes without a send.

Contact

Email support@ducktype.tech. Say which phone and which version of Herdr you run, and paste the hosts screen log if it is a connection problem. The log holds connection events only, never your agents' output.