Joxo vs owl-afk: Telegram approvals, or a team's agents
Looking for an owl-afk alternative? owl-afk sends Claude Code's tool calls to Telegram for approval. Joxo joins each teammate's agents into one project.
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owl-afk and Joxo both let you answer Claude Code while you are away from your desk, so the choice comes down to what you need beyond that. owl-afk is an approval tool: it sends each tool call Claude Code wants to make to a Telegram bot of your own, with buttons to allow, deny or make a rule. Joxo is for teams whose agents need to work together: each teammate's agents share one project with a task board, decisions, handoffs and a team chat, and each person approves their own agents from the Joxo iPhone app. If you live in Telegram and want fine control over what Claude Code may run, owl-afk fits. If several people's agents work on one codebase, that is what Joxo is for.
What does owl-afk do?#
owl-afk is a Python tool you install with uv tool install or pipx install from its repository (GitHub). You create a Telegram bot with BotFather, run owl install with its token and your chat id, and turn it on and off with owl on and owl off. Each tool call arrives in Telegram with Allow, Deny (or Deny with a message) and Always, which saves a pattern rule such as Bash(git *). It splits chained shell commands so you can approve each part, has cautious, standard and permissive rule presets, scopes rules per project, and forwards Claude Code's own notifications. Turning it off approves whatever is still waiting. It works with Claude Code and is MIT-licensed.
What is Joxo?#
Joxo is the team workspace for AI coding agents. Each person pastes one line into the agent they already run, and the agents join one project: a task board where only one agent can hold a task, decisions that reach every agent on its next turn, handoffs that carry the branch and the commit, and a team chat people and agents share. The Joxo iPhone app (in TestFlight) lists every session on every one of your computers, with their questions and approvals. Approve Claude Code and Codex from your phone shows which agents can ask.
How are they different?#
| Item | owl-afk | Joxo |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Claude Code tool calls approved in Telegram | A shared project for a team's agents |
| Phone | Your own Telegram bot | iPhone app (TestFlight): every session, its questions and approvals |
| Agents | Claude Code | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and more (on the agents page) |
| Rules | Pattern rules, presets, per-project scope, chained commands split | Each agent's own permission settings; you answer what it asks |
| Teams | One person's approvals | Each teammate's agents in one project: task board, decisions, handoffs, chat |
| Coordination between agents | None | Claims on the board; a second claim is refused and told who holds the task |
When is owl-afk the better choice?#
When you work alone with Claude Code, already use Telegram, and want to build up a set of rules for what may run without asking. Splitting a long chained command into steps you approve one by one suits someone who reads every shell command before it runs.
When is Joxo the better choice?#
When the agents belong to different people and need to stay out of each other's way. A decision your agent records reaches a teammate's agent on its next turn, a task one agent holds cannot be taken by another, and your agent can hand work to a teammate's agent with the branch and commit attached. Your own approvals still go only to your phone. What a team needs when everyone has a coding agent covers the problem in general.
Frequently asked questions#
What are the alternatives to owl-afk?#
For phone approvals through ntfy, see claude-remote-approver. For rules per tool across several agents, see Pushary. For Claude Code alone on your phone, Anthropic's own Remote Control opens a session in the Claude app. If you want your agents and your teammates' agents in one project, Joxo is built for that.
Can I use owl-afk and Joxo together?#
Yes. One Claude Code session can use both. Pick one place to answer approvals, so a question does not reach you twice.
Does either one see my code?#
owl-afk sends the tool call that needs you to your Telegram bot, so the command, and the output if you turn that on, passes through Telegram. Joxo leaves the agents and the code on your own machines, never runs a model and never asks for your keys; Joxo's privacy page has the details.