skruf ·
Vibecoding from Your Phone – Your Own AI Dev Server on a Raspberry Pi.
You get an idea. You're on the bus. You pick up your phone, open an app, and start building a website – AI writes the code, on your own server at home. You test it live in your browser. Done.
This guide shows you how to set that up. No prior server experience needed. When something is unclear, just paste the command or error into Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI – they'll help you through it.
What you need
Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB) ~$75
microSD card (32GB+) ~$10
Storage device (USB stick or external drive) ~$10
Claude Pro account $20/month
Tailscale — free
Termius (phone app) — free
Windows, Mac or Linux? All terminal commands in this guide work on Mac and Linux out of the box. Windows users should use WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) – ask an AI how to set it up, it takes about 5 minutes.
What you end up with
✅ A server at home that's always on and always ready
✅ Control it with AI from your phone, anywhere in the world
✅ Test your sites on a real mobile browser as you build
✅ No monthly cloud bills just to test an idea
✅ Your code stays on your own hardware
Part 1 – Flash the operating system
Think of this as installing Windows or macOS – but on a tiny card that goes into the Pi.
Download Raspberry Pi Imager at raspberrypi.com/software (available for Windows, Mac and Linux)
Insert your microSD card into your computer
Open Imager and select:
Device: Raspberry Pi 5
OS: Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit) — the "Lite" version has no desktop, which saves resources on a server
Click the pencil/settings icon before writing – this is important:
Hostname: pick a name, e.g. myserver
Enable SSH: ✅
Username: pick a username, e.g. dev
Password: choose something strong
WiFi: fill in if not using an ethernet cable
Timezone: set to your local timezone
Click Write and wait for it to finish
Insert the card into your Pi, plug in ethernet and power
Wait 2–3 minutes for the first boot
Part 2 – Connect to your Pi
Your Pi has no screen. You'll connect to it from your computer via SSH – a way of controlling one computer from another through text commands.
Find your Pi's IP address – check your router's admin page (usually at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) under "Connected devices". Look for your Pi's hostname.
Or from your terminal:
nmap -sn 192.168.1.0/24
Connect via SSH:
ssh yourusername@192.168.1.x
Replace yourusername with the username you chose and x with your Pi's IP. Enter your password when asked.
You're now inside your Pi. Everything from here is typed into this window.
Part 3 – Update and install essentials
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo apt install git curl build-essential fail2ban -y
sudo means "run as administrator". The Pi will ask for your password the first time.
Part 4 – Set up your storage device
Your project files should live on a separate storage device, not the microSD card (which is just for the OS).
# See what storage devices are connected
lsblk -f
You'll see something like sda – that's your USB stick or drive. Double-check it's the right one before continuing – this will erase everything on it.
# Format and set up the storage device (replace 'sda' if yours is different)
sudo wipefs -af /dev/sda
sudo parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
sudo parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary ext4 1MiB 100%
sudo mkfs.ext4 -L projects /dev/sda1
# Mount it permanently (auto-mounts on every reboot)
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/projects
sudo chown $USER:$USER /mnt/projects
echo "UUID=$(sudo blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/sda1) /mnt/projects ext4 defaults,nofail,noatime 0 2" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
sudo mount -a
# Create a shortcut to it from your home folder
ln -s /mnt/projects ~/projects
Verify it works:
ls ~/projects
df -h /mnt/projects
Part 5 – Tailscale (access from anywhere)
Tailscale creates a secure, private connection between your Pi and your phone – no router settings, no port forwarding, no technical networking knowledge needed.
On the Pi:
curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo tailscale up
A link appears – open it in your browser and log in with Google or GitHub.
On your phone: Install the Tailscale app and log in with the same account. Your Pi appears automatically in the list.
Note your Pi's Tailscale IP:
tailscale ip -4
# Looks like 100.x.x.x – save this number
Part 6 – Security
SSH keys – log in without a password
On your computer:
# Create a key if you don't have one
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "my-computer"
# Copy it to your Pi
ssh-copy-id yourusername@192.168.1.x
Windows users, run this in PowerShell instead:
type $env:USERPROFILE\.ssh\id_ed25519.pub | ssh yourusername@192.168.1.x "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"
Then disable password login on the Pi:
sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Find and change these lines:
PasswordAuthentication no
PermitRootLogin no
Save with Ctrl+O → Enter → Ctrl+X, then:
sudo systemctl restart ssh
⚠️ Test that you can still log in from a new terminal window before closing you…