Thursday - Fleming - 1240 - Breakout - TBD - Nick Taylor

April 9, 202617:129 views

Summary

Nick Taylor, developer advocate at Pomerium and GitHub Star/Microsoft MVP/AWS Community Builder, presents a talk titled "Clawzette" at AI Engineer Europe 2026, covering his open-source contribution to Open Claude (OpenClaw) and a live demonstration of building an MCP server using an identity-aware proxy workflow.

The core technical contribution Taylor describes is the addition of "trusted proxy auth mode" to the Open Claude project, which he contributed in February. Prior to this feature, even users who had their Open Claude instance secured behind a reverse proxy still had to manually paste an authentication token in the UI for WebSocket connections (which was also exposed in the query string) and separately pair their device each time. Taylor proposed the issue on GitHub (issue #1560), found community support from a Caddy user, and collaborated with maintainer Peter Stipe, who laid out the acceptance criteria. The resulting feature introduces a new config section: the `mode` field is set to `trusted-proxy`, a `trusted-proxies` list specifies the IP addresses of the gating proxy, and a `trusted-proxy` block defines the user header (typically a JWT) plus optional fields like `required-header` and `allowed-users`. With this in place, users secured by an identity-aware proxy such as Pomerium no longer need to manage tokens for WebSocket connections or perform device pairing — a simultaneous security hardening and UX improvement. The PR experienced significant rebase overhead due to Open Claude's explosive growth: issue #1560 opened when the repo was around PR 1700, and after a two-week vacation the project had grown to nearly 16,000 PRs. A post-merge bug found by community member Anthony and fixed by Sid demonstrated the value of open-source community collaboration.

Taylor then pivots to a live demo building what he calls "Claw Space" — a personal workspace tool he created to browse and edit files from his phone via Discord without SSH access. The demo showcases building an MCP server that integrates with the ChatGPT MCP Apps interface. He registers the MCP app in ChatGPT and begins live-coding with Open Claude via Discord. The MCP server starts with two tools: an echo tool (displaying UI widgets using standard MCP spec features) and a search-speakers tool. Using only Discord chat commands, Taylor instructs Open Claude to fetch the AI Engineer conference's `speakers.json` data and build a filterable speaker search UI with React and Vite (with hot module reloading for live updates visible in ChatGPT). He then adds a "More" button that uses the MCP `send_message` function to trigger a follow-up LLM call in ChatGPT, returning a generated summary of why to attend a given speaker's talk.

The entire workflow is only possible because Pomerium (an identity-aware proxy) exposes the local development server at a public URL behind authenticated access, allowing ChatGPT to connect to the MCP server while Taylor edits the underlying files via Open Claude on his phone. Taylor notes that similar setups are possible with Caddy plus OAuth. He acknowledges risks (citing examples of users accidentally deleting emails or exposing data), but emphasizes that trusted proxy auth mode provides a principled security model. He closes by encouraging the audience to build personal software tools using Open Claude, embrace agentic workflows, and explore the MCP track sessions at the conference.

Key Takeaways

•Open Claude's trusted proxy auth mode eliminates the need for manual WebSocket tokens and device pairing when the instance is already secured behind an identity-aware proxy like Pomerium or Caddy.
•To configure trusted proxy auth mode, set `mode: trusted-proxy`, define `trusted-proxies` IP addresses, and add a `trusted-proxy` block with a JWT-based `user-header`; no `allowed-users` is needed if the proxy's policy engine handles access control.
•Exposing a locally running MCP server through an identity-aware proxy (Pomerium, Caddy + OAuth) allows integration with external LLM platforms like ChatGPT while maintaining authenticated access control.
•Open Claude can be used from a mobile device via Discord to drive agentic coding workflows — editing workspace files, building MCP servers, and triggering hot-reload updates in real time.
•MCP Apps in ChatGPT support rich UI widgets (built with standard MCP spec) alongside tool calls, enabling interactive front-end components rendered directly in the chat interface.
•The MCP `send_message` function can trigger additional LLM calls from within a tool response, enabling chained AI interactions (e.g., generating a speaker bio summary on button click).
•When contributing to fast-moving open-source projects like Open Claude (which grew from ~1,500 to ~16,000 PRs in weeks), expect significant rebase overhead — open PRs early but be prepared to rebase frequently.
•Testing open-source contributions against your own environment can cause blind spots; community members catching post-merge bugs and submitting fixes is a normal and healthy part of the OSS lifecycle.
•Avoid using Telegram for Open Claude deployments if security is a concern, as Telegram channels are not end-to-end encrypted by default.
The GitHub CLI given full MCP tool access will open PRs immediately — scope permissions carefully or use draft mode to avoid premature submissions.

Transcript

[music] >> Yeah. So, like like Phil said, I work at Pomerium and he's not the first person to have trouble pronouncing it. So, I actually convinced the marketing team to uh create Pomeranian stickers. So, if anybody wants Pomeranian stickers, I have a bunch with me. Um bit about me, uh I'm a dev advocate over at Pomerium as Phil said. Um from Canada, uh hailing from Montreal. So, uh if anybody likes poutine and bagels, feel free to chat with me after. Uh also a GitHub star, Microsoft MVP, and AW...