What Spyglass does and who it's for
Spyglass is an iOS-first developer dashboard from Anchored Development LLC. It's for developers who let coding agents, such as GitHub Copilot or Claude Code, open branches and pull requests, and who want to review and ship that work from a phone. Spyglass shows what changed on a branch, lets you make a small fix, and commits, opens or merges the pull request through GitHub. It runs on iPhone and iPad.
The Vercel integration adds deployments to that picture. For a branch or pull request you're reviewing, Spyglass looks for the Vercel deployment built from that exact commit, shows its state and preview URL, and shows which deployment is serving production. It reads; it doesn't deploy, cancel, roll back, promote or change any setting.
Setup requirements
- A Vercel account or team with at least one project connected to a GitHub repository.
- Permission on that Vercel account or team to install integrations.
- Spyglass on an iPhone or iPad, signed in with the GitHub account that can see the repository.
-
For the current development version: the Spyglass development callback running on the same
machine as your browser, listening at
http://localhost:8977/callback. Testers receive the install link and callback from Anchored Development.
How to install and connect
- Start the Spyglass development callback, so that
http://localhost:8977/callbackis reachable from your browser. - Open the Spyglass integration's install link on Vercel and sign in to Vercel if asked.
- Choose the Vercel account or team to install Spyglass on.
- Choose Specific Projects and pick the projects Spyglass may read, or choose All Projects. We recommend specific projects.
- Review the permissions (Read for Integration Configuration, Projects and Deployments; nothing else) and confirm the installation.
- Vercel redirects to the callback, which completes the connection and confirms it in the browser. You can close the tab.
In the public release, the callback will be Spyglass's own server instead of
localhost, and you'll start the connection from Spyglass's Settings, returning to the
app when it completes.
How to choose projects
Spyglass can only read the projects you give it. To change them after installing:
- In the Vercel dashboard, open your account or team's Integrations page.
- Find Spyglass and choose Manage.
- Edit the project access: add or remove projects, or switch between Specific Projects and All Projects, then save.
A project you remove stops being readable straight away. Spyglass treats it as no longer shared and stops showing it; in the public release, anything cached for that project is deleted at the next check.
How to disconnect or uninstall
Uninstall from Vercel
- In the Vercel dashboard, open Integrations for the account or team.
- Choose Manage next to Spyglass.
- Choose Uninstall and confirm.
Uninstalling revokes Spyglass's access token at Vercel; Spyglass can no longer read anything from that account or team. Nothing in your Vercel projects or deployments is changed or removed.
Disconnect in Spyglass (public release)
Settings → Vercel → Disconnect deletes Spyglass's copy of the access token and everything it cached for that installation, on the server and on the device. It doesn't uninstall the integration from a team, since others may rely on it; Spyglass links you to Vercel's integration settings for that.
Permissions
Spyglass requests the smallest set of read permissions it needs:
| Scope | Access | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Integration Configuration | Read | To confirm which Vercel account or team installed Spyglass and which projects it was given. |
| Projects | Read | To list the projects you shared and see which Git repository each one deploys. |
| Deployments | Read | To match a deployment to the exact commit you're reviewing and show its state, URL and build output. |
| Everything else | None | Domains, environment variables, billing, logs drains, team members and every write scope are not requested. |
No write permission is requested. If deployment actions (cancel, redeploy, roll back, promote) are added later, they'll be a separate, optional installation with its own consent, so this read-only connection never gains write access silently.
What data Spyglass reads, stores and deletes
Reads
- Integration configuration: the installation's ID, the account or team it belongs to, and which projects it can see.
- Projects: names, IDs, framework and the linked Git repository, for the projects you shared.
- Deployments: state, target environment (preview or production), deployment URL, the Git branch and commit it was built from, and timestamps; build output for a deployment you open.
Spyglass doesn't read environment variables, domains, team members, billing or runtime logs, and doesn't read your source code from Vercel.
Stores
Current development version: nothing from Vercel is stored on Spyglass's servers or in the Spyglass app. The test callback runs on the developer's own machine, and the access token it receives is used only for testing there. Tokens are never committed to source code or included in the app.
Public release (planned): the access token is encrypted and stored on Spyglass's server (Cloudflare Workers and D1), with the installation and team IDs. Deployment details are cached for up to 30 days, alerts for 30 days, and event delivery records for 7 days; an in-progress connection attempt expires after 10 minutes. Tokens and build output are never written to logs or notifications.
Deletes
- Disconnecting in Spyglass deletes the token and all cached data for that installation.
- Uninstalling on Vercel, or removing a project's access, deletes the related data when Spyglass receives Vercel's notice or at its next 15-minute check.
- Deleting your Spyglass account deletes all of its Vercel data.
- Anything else is pruned daily once it passes the periods above.
See the Spyglass privacy policy for the full details.
Troubleshooting
- The browser says it can't reach localhost after I install.
- The development callback isn't running, or is on another machine. Start it, then install again from the link. The installation on Vercel may already exist; that's fine.
- A project is missing.
- It probably wasn't shared. Add it under Integrations → Spyglass → Manage on Vercel. Projects without a linked Git repository can't be matched to a branch.
- A branch shows no preview.
- Vercel may not have built that commit yet, may have skipped it, or the build failed. Spyglass only shows a preview for the exact commit; an older preview is labelled as older.
- A preview link asks me to sign in.
- The project uses Vercel Deployment Protection. Sign in to Vercel in the browser that opens; Spyglass never bypasses protection.
- Spyglass says it needs to reconnect.
- The installation was removed, its permissions changed, or its token was revoked. Install again from the link.
Support
Email contact@anchoreddev.com with what you saw and, if you can, the time it happened and the project's name. Please don't send access tokens or secrets. Terms of use are in the Spyglass terms.