claude-bus

Give the office PC a job and the home PC does it. No server, no ports — one folder is the whole thing.

How it runs

Two computers share one folder (the kind that syncs itself).

1. The office PC drops a file saying “do this” into the folder
2. A watcher on the home PC, checking the folder every minute, finds it
3. The home PC starts a fresh session and does the work
4. It puts the result back into the same folder
5. The office PC reads it

No server, no ports, no login. It was laid on top of a folder sync that was already running.

It was not built to move files

The most misread part.

Files inside a syncing folder are already on both machines. There would be no reason to build this to send a file.

What it buys is not the file, it is the machine.

There are things only the home PC has — programs installed only there, a game project only there, hardware attached to it. Moving files does not get you those.

So the job is sent over so it can be done there.

Why build a slow channel on purpose

A round trip takes two to three minutes. A messenger takes seconds. Far slower.

There is one thing a messenger cannot do.

	A messenger	This bus
Speed	Seconds	2–3 minutes
If the other machine is asleep	Messages just pile up	It wakes it and runs the job

A messenger requires the other side to be awake. Asleep, the messages accumulate and someone has to read them in the morning.

Here the watcher keeps looking at the folder, so when a file lands the sleeping side wakes itself and works.

Slow, but it arrives with nobody there.

Written up in three parts

	What the problem is
Protocol	Both sides share one folder — why no conflict copies appear
Timing	I measured where the three minutes go — it was not my code
Safety	What stands between somebody else’s instruction and my machine

The detailed record starts here

Two machines share one folder. One side drops a JSON file, a watcher on the other side picks it up within a minute, spawns a fresh session, and puts the result back in the same folder. No server, no port, no auth — it rides on a sync folder that was already running.

It buys you the machine, not the files

Everything under the synced folder is already on both machines. You don’t need a bus to move files.

What a bus buys you is the other machine itself.

• Hardware only it has — a GPU, an attached device, a game client
• A network only it can reach
• Software only it has installed

Why build a slow channel on purpose

A chat app moves in seconds. But if the other machine is asleep, messages just pile up. This bus takes three minutes and wakes the sleeper.

Waking and speed are different axes. When people pick a channel they only look at the second one.

Written up in three parts

	The problem
Protocol	Making conflict copies impossible in a two-way sync folder
Timing	Measured where the three minutes go — it wasn’t my code
Safety	What stands between somebody else’s instruction and my machine