lan-direct

A skill and a browser MCP for coding agents behind a full-tunnel VPN — Claude Code and Codex.

Your VPN has to stay on, because that's how the agent reaches its API. But the app you're testing calls services that reject the VPN's foreign exit IP: a domestic API, a payment or SMS gateway, a bank endpoint. Turning the VPN off isn't an option — it cuts the agent off.

lan-direct gives the app an ISP-direct path while the agent stays on the tunnel. No admin, no routing-table edits, no VPN reconfiguration. How it works.

Install

Requires Node ≥ 20.6, plus PowerShell on Windows or bash and curl on Linux/macOS. No admin, no symlinks, no renaming.

From npm

npm install -g lan-direct
lan-direct install-skill                                             # or --codex
claude mcp add playwright-split --scope user "--" npx -y lan-direct browser

Then restart the agent. That's it — the same three lines on every platform.

npx -y lan-direct browser is the better MCP command however you install: it survives the checkout moving, which an absolute path into a clone does not.

Why "--" is quoted. On Windows claude resolves to claude.ps1, and PowerShell's parameter binder strips a bare -- before the script ever sees it. The CLI then reads -y as one of its own flags and fails with error: unknown option '-y'. Quoting protects it, and quotes are a no-op in bash — so the same line works in PowerShell, bash and cmd.

From a clone

Prefer this if you want to edit the skill or track it — one git pull updates everything, where npm needs npm update -g lan-direct && lan-direct install-skill because install-skill copies files rather than linking them.

Either way, your own host list at ~/.lan-direct-hosts is never touched.

1. Clone into your agent's skills directory. Both agents discover skills by scanning a directory for SKILL.md — they just scan different ones.

# Windows - Claude Code
git clone https://github.com/farshadmomo/lan-direct.git "$HOME\.claude\skills\lan-direct"

# Windows - Codex
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path "$HOME\.agents\skills" | Out-Null
git clone https://github.com/farshadmomo/lan-direct.git "$HOME\.agents\skills\lan-direct"

# Linux / macOS - Claude Code
git clone https://github.com/farshadmomo/lan-direct.git ~/.claude/skills/lan-direct

# Linux / macOS - Codex
mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills
git clone https://github.com/farshadmomo/lan-direct.git ~/.agents/skills/lan-direct

2. Register the browser MCP:

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass `
  -File "$HOME\.claude\skills\lan-direct\scripts\install.ps1"

The installer verifies the bypass actually works, registers the server against this checkout, and prints the equivalent ~/.codex/config.toml block for Codex. Safe to re-run — it replaces the existing entry rather than duplicating it.

On Linux/macOS there's no installer script; register it directly:

claude mcp add playwright-split --scope user "--" \
  node ~/.claude/skills/lan-direct/scripts/lan-browser.mjs --port 8900

Restart the agent. Then /lan-direct in Claude Code, or in either agent just describe the problem — the description frontmatter is the trigger, firing on phrasings like "test this while my VPN is on" or "the API rejects the VPN IP".

To update: git -C <that directory> pull. No reinstall needed.

... [View full README on GitHub](https://github.com/farshadmomo/lan-direct#readme)