VibeWatch — Apple Watch (watchOS)

VibeCodyWatch is the native Apple Watch client for VibeCody. Written in SwiftUI for watchOS 10+, it pairs with a running VibeCLI or VibeUI instance and gives you a glanceable session monitor + dictated reply from your wrist.

Introduced in v0.5.5. Shares the /watch/* backend with the Wear OS client.

What you can do on the watch

• See live AI sessions streaming from your desktop in real time (no truncation).
• Dictate a reply with the watchOS speech recognizer or tap a quick-reply template.
• Approve or cancel agent actions when the desktop is in suggest mode.
• Switch sessions between chat, agent, review, and sandbox tasks.
• Receive session notifications on the wrist via Apple’s Watch Connectivity framework.
• Pair via URL only — no JSON, no QR required. Works against the watchOS simulator.

Requirements

VibeWatch requires the companion iPhone app. Pair the desktop once from VibeMobile, and the watch inherits the pairing.

Install

Option 1 — sideload the release build

Download the unsigned .app.zip from the Releases page:

curl -LO https://github.com/TuringWorks/vibecody/releases/download/v0.5.5/VibeCody-WatchOS-v0.5.5.app.zip
unzip VibeCody-WatchOS-v0.5.5.app.zip

In Xcode: Window → Devices and Simulators → Apple Watch → + → select the extracted .app. Trust the developer profile on the watch (Settings → General → VPN & Device Management).

Option 2 — build from source

# From repo root, on macOS with Xcode 15+ (Xcode 26+ to submit to App Store):
make watch-ios          # Release build for the simulator
make watch-ios-archive  # Archive for a real device (requires signing)

For TestFlight / Ad Hoc distribution from CI, populate the APPLE_TEAM_ID, APPLE_CERT_P12_BASE64, APPLE_PROVISIONING_PROFILE_BASE64 (+ optional APPLE_ASC_*) repo secrets — the Watch · watchOS (signed) release-workflow job is otherwise a no-op.

The Xcode project lives at vibewatch/VibeCodyWatch.xcodeproj. Open it directly if you want to run in the simulator with Cmd-R.

Pair in 3 taps

Pairing is done once, from the iPhone. The watch inherits the JWT.

1. iPhone (VibeMobile): pair with the desktop (see VibeMobile pairing).
2. iPhone: on the paired machine row, tap ⋯ → Add Apple Watch.
3. Watch: open VibeCody → tap Accept on the pairing prompt.

Under the hood the watch generates a P-256 ECDSA keypair inside the Secure Enclave, signs a freshly issued nonce (SHA-256(nonce ‖ device_id ‖ issued_at_be)), and receives a 30-day JWT.

Emulator / simulator path

The watchOS simulator has no Secure Enclave, so it falls back to a software-backed P-256 key — pairing still succeeds using the URL + Bearer method. From VibeCLI:

vibecli> /pair --show-bearer --for-watch

Paste both fields into the watch’s Settings → Manual Pair screen.

The screens

1. Sessions list

┌──────────────────┐
│  ● refactor axu… │   ← green dot = streaming
│  ○ review PR#42  │
│  ● agent: tests  │
│                  │
│     [ Scroll ]   │
└──────────────────┘

Crown-scroll through sessions from all machines the desktop advertises. The dot shows live/streaming status.

2. Transcript view

Tap a session to see the live transcript. Text is auto-sized to the bezel, word-wrapped, and never truncated (0.5.5 fixed the old 80/512-char cap). Turn the Digital Crown to scroll.

Force-touch (or long-press on Series 7+) opens the session context menu:

• Reply — dictate a response
• Pull to phone — Handoff to iPhone
• Cancel step — cancels the current agent action (if in suggest mode)
• Close — closes the session on the desktop

3. Reply sheet

Three reply paths, pick whichever matches the context:

• Dictate — tap the mic; uses Apple’s on-device speech recognizer. Hit Send or let the auto-detect silence trigger.
• Templates — “Yes, proceed”, “Show me the diff”, “Cancel”, plus 3 customizable ones you edit from VibeMobile.
• Keyboard — QWERTY if you like tiny taps (or use Scribble on compatible watches).

4. Approvals (suggest-mode agents)

When the desktop agent runs in the default suggest policy and proposes a shell command or file write, the watch gets a haptic tap and a modal:

 ⚠ Run:  cargo check
 Session: refactor axum
 [ Approve ]  [ Reject ]

Approve / reject answers stream back to the desktop in under 200ms.

Wrist-suspend and battery

• Auto-sleep. When the wrist drops, the SSE stream is paused and replaced with a low-power heartbeat. Raising the wrist instantly resumes.
• Active use. Expect ~1% battery for a 10-minute active session. Streaming transcripts are cheap; dictation is the main drain.
• Complication. Add the VibeCody complication to a watch face for 1-tap launch into the last active session.

Sandbox sessions and VibeUI auto-focus

If you start a sandbox session from the watch (agent runs in a container), VibeUI on the desktop automatically switches to the Sandbox tab so you can watch the container output while the watch drives. Turn this off in vibeui/Settings → Handoff → Auto-focus sandbox tab.

Troubleshooting

Watch says “No paired machine”

• Open VibeMobile and verify the machine is listed under Machines.
• On the desktop, run /watch devices in VibeCLI to see accepted devices. Revoke and re-pair if the watch isn’t there.

Dictation returns empty text

• Check Settings → General → Dictation on the watch is enabled.
• Offline dictation requires watchOS 10+ and an A-series chip (Series 6+); older watches need WiFi / phone nearby.

Stream pauses after 30 seconds

• Raise the wrist — the SSE stream resumes. If it doesn’t, toggle airplane mode briefly or tap Reload in the session context menu.

“Certificate trust” error on first launch

Sideloaded .apps require trust from Settings → General → VPN & Device Management on the phone, then Watch app → General → Profiles for the watch.

Security notes

• P-256 private key lives in the Secure Enclave and never leaves the watch.
• JWT is stored in the watch keychain (access group per-app, kSecAttrAccessibleWhenUnlockedThisDeviceOnly).
• Revocation is instant: /watch revoke <device-id> from VibeCLI, or the Watch Devices panel in VibeUI — the next request gets a 401 and the watch falls back to re-pair.

See Watch Integration for the full pairing / signature / relay architecture.

Related

• Wear OS guide — identical feature set for Android
• VibeMobile — the iPhone app that brokers pairing
• Connectivity — mDNS / Tailscale / ngrok
• Releases — download artifacts