Feature request: Remote gateway support — run Tandem on a different machine than the OpenClaw gateway

[carl-jeffrolc]

Summary

Tandem currently assumes the OpenClaw gateway runs on the same machine (127.0.0.1:18789). It would be very useful to support connecting Tandem on one machine to an OpenClaw gateway running on another machine on the same LAN — similar to how the OpenClaw companion app connects to a remote gateway.

Use case

My setup:

• Machine A (Mac Studio): Runs the OpenClaw gateway 24/7 (bare metal, dedicated box)
• Machine B (Mac Studio): My daily workstation where I browse

I'd like to run Tandem Browser on Machine B and have it connect to the OpenClaw gateway on Machine A over the local network (e.g., ws://172.31.253.xxx:18789).

This is the same pattern the OpenClaw companion app already supports — connecting to a remote gateway via WebSocket URL + auth token.

What would need to change

1. Configurable gateway URL — Allow ~/.tandem/config.json (or a settings UI field) to specify a custom gateway WebSocket URL instead of hardcoding 127.0.0.1:18789

2. Configurable gateway auth — Support providing the OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN for authenticating to the remote gateway

3. Webhook URL adjustment — The webhook url in config currently points to http://127.0.0.1:18789. For remote mode, this would need to be the remote gateway's address. The OpenClaw gateway already supports this when gateway.bind is set to something other than loopback.

4. Auto-detect fallback — Try localhost first, fall back to configured remote URL, or let the user pick in settings

5. Security considerations:

   • Remote connections should use WSS (TLS) when possible
   • Tandem's existing Tailscale detection could help here
   • The gateway token should be stored securely (keychain integration?)
   • OpenClaw's existing auth modes (token, password, Tailscale trusted-proxy) should all work

Relevant OpenClaw docs

• Remote access — Documents SSH tunnels and Tailscale Serve for remote gateway access
• Control UI — The Control UI already supports connecting to remote gateways via URL + token

Current workaround

SSH tunnel forwarding works but requires manual setup:

ssh -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789 user@gateway-host

Native support in Tandem would be much cleaner, especially for always-on setups where the gateway machine is a dedicated server.

Environment

• Tandem Browser: 0.62.14
• OpenClaw: 2026.3.13
• Two Mac Studios on the same LAN (172.31.253.0/24)

[hydro13]

You are not the only one asking that...
but it has a lot more complications, now we are talking about:
Tandem op Windows -> OpenClaw op VPS/Linux
Tandem op Windows -> OpenClaw op Mac mini
Tandem op macOS -> OpenClaw op VPS/Linux
Tandem op Linux -> OpenClaw op Mac mini
Tandem op macOS/Linux/Windows -> OpenClaw op WSL2, Docker, VM, remote bare metal
in short..

cross-OS client/server combinations