ocaptain

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful Claude Code session is done, The repo has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won.

Minimalist multi-coding agent control plane built on sprites.dev VMs with Tailscale mesh networking. Orchestration is managed by Claude Code's built-in task list feature: work is distributed by the ocaptain CLI to cloud VMs ("ships") that work in parallel on a plan you generate with Claude.

No Kubernetes, no local sandboxes, no containers, no asking for permissions.

Table of Contents

• What it does
• Why?
• Quickstart
• Architecture
• CLI Reference
• Voyage Plans
• Configuration
• Security

What it does

Provisions a fleet of VMs on sprites.dev, each running an autonomous Claude Code agent. Ships sync files via Mutagen and coordinate through a shared task list—no central scheduler, just agents racing to complete work.

You (local) → ocaptain sail → sprites.dev VMs → Ships claim tasks → Code syncs back

Why?

• Deploy parallel, autonomous Claude Code instances with one command
• No container complexity: full Linux VMs with direct access
• Watch Claude Code sessions in real-time via tmux
• Task-based coordination means no conflicts, no merge hell
• Local storage with Mutagen sync—no storage VM required
• Built-in OpenTelemetry observability

Quickstart

Prerequisites

1. sprites.dev account with sprite CLI installed or exe.dev account.
2. Tailscale installed and running
3. Mutagen installed (brew install mutagen-io/mutagen/mutagen)
4. Claude Code long-lived OAuth token (subscription required, from claude setup-token)
5. Tailscale OAuth secret for ephemeral auth keys (used to connect VMs)

Install

# Install from PyPI (recommended)
uv tool install ocaptain

# Or run directly without installing
uvx ocaptain doctor

Set credentials

# Claude Code OAuth token (from `claude setup-token`)
export CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN="your-token-here"

# Tailscale OAuth secret (for ephemeral ship auth keys)
export OCAPTAIN_TAILSCALE_OAUTH_SECRET="tskey-client-xxxx"

# sprites.dev org
export OCAPTAIN_SPRITES_ORG="your-org"

# Optional: GitHub token for private repos
export GH_TOKEN="ghp_xxxx"

Check prerequisites

ocaptain doctor

Make a plan

At the moment, you need to use Claude Code to create a detailed dependency plan to pass to ocaptain.

Use an existing plan

For convenience, example plans are available in the examples/generated-plans directory.

Create a custom plan

In Claude Code, run the following then restart:

/plugin marketplace add smithclay/skills
/plugin install ocaptain-skills@smithclay-skills

You're now ready to generate a detailed plan in Claude Code using /voyage-plan:

Plan a voyage with ocaptain: take an empty repository and make a to-do list app.

Launch a voyage

# A plan is required, see "Make a plan" above
ocaptain sail ./examples/generated-plans/multilingual-readme

# Monitor status
ocaptain status

# Attach to a ship's tmux session to watch Claude work
ocaptain shell voyage-abc123 ship-0

# View aggregated logs
ocaptain logs voyage-abc123 --follow

# Clone the workspace when done
ocaptain clone voyage-abc123

# Scuttle the fleet
ocaptain sink voyage-abc123

Architecture

flowchart TB
    subgraph Local["Local Machine"]
        CLI[ocaptain CLI]
        Voyages[(~/voyages/)]
        Telemetry[OTLP Collector]
    end

    subgraph Tailscale["Tailscale Mesh"]
        TS[100.x.x.x]
    end

    subgraph Sprites["sprites.dev or exe.dev"]
        subgraph Fleet["Ship VMs"]
            S0[Ship 0<br/>Claude Code]
            S1[Ship 1<br/>Claude Code]
            S2[Ship N<br/>Claude Code]
        end
    end

    CLI -->|Mutagen Sync| TS
    TS -->|Workspace + Tasks| Fleet
    Fleet -->|Telemetry| Telemetry
    S0 & S1 & S2 -->|tmux sessions| CLI

Loading

Components

Component	Description
Local Voyages	~/voyages/<voyage-id>/ contains workspace, tasks, logs, and artifacts
Ship VMs	sprites.dev VMs running Claude Code autonomously in tmux sessions
Tailscale Mesh	Ships join tailnet with ephemeral keys for direct connectivity
Mutagen Sync	Two-way file sync between laptop and ships (workspace + tasks)
Task List	Shared JSON files in ~/.claude/tasks/. Ships race to claim pending tasks

Voyage Lifecycle

1. Setup — Local voyage directory created, repo cloned, tasks seeded
2. Bootstrap — Ship VMs provisioned in parallel, join Tailscale, install Claude
3. Sync — Mutagen sessions established for workspace and tasks
4. Launch — Claude starts in tmux on each ship (autonomous operation)
5. Work — Ships claim tasks, do work, changes sync back via Mutagen
6. Complete — All tasks done, workspace ready to clone
7. Sink — VMs destroyed, Tailscale nodes removed

CLI Reference

ocaptain sail <plan>

Launch a new voyage from a plan directory.

ocaptain sail ./plans/add-auth --ships 5

Option	Description
--ships, -n	Override recommended ship count
--no-telemetry	Disable OTLP telemetry collection

ocaptain status [voyage_id]

Show voyage status derived from task list. Auto-selects if only one active voyage.

ocaptain status
ocaptain status voyage-abc123

ocaptain logs <voyage_id>

View aggregated logs from all ships.

ocaptain logs voyage-abc123
ocaptain logs voyage-abc123 --follow --grep "error"

Option	Description
--ship, -s	Filter to specific ship
--follow, -f	Stream logs in real-time
--grep, -g	Filter log lines by pattern
--tail, -n	Show last N lines

ocaptain tasks <voyage_id>

Display task list with status, assignees, and blockers.

ocaptain tasks voyage-abc123
ocaptain tasks voyage-abc123 --status pending

ocaptain shell <voyage_id> [ship_id]

Attach to a ship's tmux session to observe Claude working.

ocaptain shell voyage-abc123 ship-0      # Attach to ship's tmux
ocaptain shell voyage-abc123 ship-0 --raw  # Direct SSH

ocaptain clone [voyage_id]

Clone the workspace from local voyage storage.

ocaptain clone                    # Auto-select if one voyage
ocaptain clone voyage-abc123 -d ./my-copy

ocaptain sink <voyage_id>

Destroy voyage VMs and clean up.

ocaptain sink voyage-abc123       # Destroy ships
ocaptain sink --all -f            # Destroy ALL ocaptain VMs

Option	Description
--all	Destroy ALL ocaptain VMs
--force, -f	Skip confirmation

ocaptain doctor

Check system prerequisites and configuration.

ocaptain doctor

ocaptain telemetry-start / telemetry-stop

Start or stop the local OTLP telemetry collector.

ocaptain telemetry-start
ocaptain telemetry-stop

Configuration

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN	Yes	Claude Code authentication token
OCAPTAIN_TAILSCALE_OAUTH_SECRET	Yes	Tailscale OAuth secret for ephemeral keys
OCAPTAIN_SPRITES_ORG	Yes	sprites.dev organization name
GH_TOKEN	No	GitHub token for private repos
OCAPTAIN_DEFAULT_SHIPS	No	Default ship count (default: 3)

sprites.dev Setup

Install the sprite CLI and authenticate:

# Test connectivity
sprite list -o your-org

# Create a test sprite
sprite create -o your-org test-sprite

Tailscale Setup

1. Create an OAuth client in the Tailscale admin console with devices:write scope
2. Set OCAPTAIN_TAILSCALE_OAUTH_SECRET to the client secret
3. Ensure your laptop is connected to the tailnet

Security

Token Handling

• OAuth tokens passed via environment variables, not command args
• Tailscale ephemeral keys expire automatically when ships are destroyed

Network Isolation

• Ships communicate only via Tailscale mesh (no public IPs)
• Each ship is a full Linux VM with its own filesystem
• Mutagen sync scoped to specific directories

Repository Access

• Private repos require GH_TOKEN
• Token validity checked before VM provisioning
• Clone failures surface immediately, not after fleet deploys