From credentials to your desktop in three steps

Change the password immediately after the first login and keep the default firewall rules on.

Verify the environment: run sw_vers, xcodebuild -version and claude --version in Terminal.

Store the credentials in a password manager, not only in a chat thread.

Install the client on the Mac with unattended access enabled; connect from your own computer with the device code and temporary password.

If the screen is black on first connect, the display is asleep: run caffeinate -d as admin or disable sleep in System Settings.

Install Tailscale on the Mac, sign into your tailnet and note its 100.x address; sign in on your machine and run ssh user@100.x.x.x.

For passwordless login use ssh-copy-id to append your public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. For Claude Code alone, that is all you need.

Run caffeinate -dimsu before a long job, or wrap it in nohup / tmux so sleep or a dropped connection does not kill the process.

Schedule with launchd (user LaunchAgent) or cron and write logs to a fixed path for the next morning.

Cannot connect: ping the gateway, then check whether the client is online. Residential IPs occasionally change and we announce the new address.

Slow: pick a nearer region or switch protocol (SSH uses far less bandwidth than a desktop); move large files with rsync.

Broken environment: the machine can be reset, so back up first; resets are done by us on request.