AI-powered mobile IDE and cloud development platform. Code on your phone, run on your machine or in secure cloud sandboxes.

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Structure

Directory	Description
app/	Expo/React Native mobile app
cli/	CLI tool (helixbox-cli)
manager/	Manager server
proxy/	Proxy server
pty/	Rust PTY binary uses wezterm internal libs for rendering

Usage

This can be used in two ways, both are for coding:

• Helix Box Connect: One is when you want to remotely use pc without dealing with ssh and shit, geared towards coding
• Helix Box Cloud: Coming soon

App

Mobile app for iOS/Android/Web built with Expo. App is just a dumb client with most logic on cli and app just acting as a rendering client.

• File explorer and editor
• Git integration
• Terminal emulator
• Process management

Supported Languages (22)

en, zh, ja, ko, es, pt, de, fr, vi, ru, id, pl, tr, it, nl, sv, uk, fi, zh-TW, tw, ms, es-MX

CLI

Node.js CLI that bridges your local machine to the app via WebSocket. Can be ran using npx helixbox-cli

• Filesystem operations (read, write, grep, etc.)
• Git commands (status, commit, push, pull, etc.)
• Terminal spawning
• Process management
• Port scanning
• System monitoring (CPU, memory, disk, battery)

npx helixbox-cli

Manager and Proxy

Bun-based WebSocket relay server that connects CLI and app using session codes. Public verion deployed on gateway.helixbox.dev

• Session management with 10-min TTL
• Dual-channel architecture (control + data)
• QR code pairing

PTY

Rust binary for pseudo-terminal management, used by the CLI.

• Real PTY sessions via wezterm fork on github.com/sohzm/wezterm
• Screen buffer as cell grid (char + fg + bg per cell)
• 24fps render loop (only sends updates when content changes)
• JSON line protocol over stdin/stdout

OpenAI Codex & GPT-5.6 Integration

HelixBox was built and optimized with substantial assistance from OpenAI Codex and GPT-5.6:

• Rust PTY Delta Engine: Codex co-authored the optimized incremental screen buffer diffing logic in the Rust PTY rendering loop, ensuring low-latency communication over standard output.
• WebSocket Reconnection Logic: GPT-5.6 helped design the network reconnection state machine in the Bun WebSocket proxy to maintain active connection states during mobile cellular handoffs.
• Protocol Typings: Codex generated TypeScript definitions for the control-plane RPC protocol to ensure type safety between the mobile app and the local CLI bridge.

📄 License

MIT: See LICENSE for details.

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