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Overview

Mage Pro supports remote development using Visual Studio Code or Cursor, so you can build and manage your pipelines in a full-featured local IDE while connecting securely to your Mage Pro environment. This integration leverages Tailscale VPN for secure networking and SSH for remote access.
⚠️ This feature is not available by default on Trial clusters. To enable access, please contact the Mage team at pro@mage.ai to request activation for your Mage Pro account.

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Core components

  • Tailscale VPN: Secure network connection between local and remote environments
  • Remote SSH Extension: VS Code’s tool for remote development
  • Mage Pro Cluster: Containerized environment for data pipelines
  • Authentication System: Secure key-based access control
To integrate with VS Code or Cursor please contact Mage to request an account upgrade. The Mage team will need to enable this feature for your organization.

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Setup guide

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1. Tailscale VPN setup

Step 1: Navigate to the Tailscale website and download the appropriate version for your operating system.
Tailscale download
Step 2: Install Tailscale following the in-app instructions. Step 3: Access the Tailscale admin console from their main website. Step 4: Generate an Auth Key by navigating to Settings > Keys and selecting “Generate Auth Key.”
Tailscale keys

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2. Mage Pro configuration

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Setting Environment Variables for the Cluster

Step 1: Navigate to your Mage Pro management cluster. Step 2: Select “Edit/Add variable’ to add environment variables. Step 3: Add a new custom variable:
  • Key: TS_AUTH_KEY
  • Value: YOUR_AUTH_KEY
Step 4: Click the “Save changes” button to save the TS_AUTHKEY variable. (This will restart your cluster).
TS Authkey Environment Variable

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Setting Environment Variables for Workspaces

If you are using Mage Pro workspaces, you must configure environment variables separately at the workspace level.
Note: Each workspace requires its own unique TS_AUTHKEY. Generate a separate Tailscale auth key for each workspace to ensure proper network isolation and security.
To configure environment variables for a workspace, follow the guide here: 👉 Workspace Environment Configuration Here’s an example workspace configuration: 
env:
  - name: TS_AUTHKEY
    value: <workspace_specific_tailscale_auth_key>
  - name: TS_EXTRA_ARGS
    value: --accept-routes
  - name: ENV
    value: dev
  - name: USER_CODE_PATH
    value: /home/src/<your_project_folder>

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3. Connection verification

Step 1: Return to the Tailscale admin panel after your cluster restarts. Step 2: Locate your Mage Pro cluster in your Machine’s list (i.e. mageai-1-tutorials). Step 3: Note the private IP address from the address column.
TS Tailscale machines
Step 4: Open a terminal on your local machine and run the following command: 
curl <PRIVATE_IP_ADDRESS>:6789/api/status
Step 5: Verify that you receive a successful connection response.

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4. VS Code setup

Step 1: Open Visual Studio Code on your local machine. Step 2: Install the “Remote - SSH” extension from the Extensions marketplace (Ctrl+Shift+X or Cmd+Shift+X on macOS).
VS Code remote SSH
Step 3: Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P on macOS). Step 4: Type “Remote-SSH: Connect to Host” and select it.
Connect to SSH host
Step 5: Enter or select the correct ip address.
Enter ip address
Step 6: Enter the login username and password which will first be provided to you by Mage

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5. Accessing your code

Step 1: When prompted for the folder to open, enter your user code path.
  • Default user code path: /home/src/default_repo
Step 3: If you’ve customized this path, use your specific directory. Step 4: Click “OK” to open your project files in VS Code.

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Setting up Tailscale on AWS

Connect your AWS instances to your secure network using Tailscale to enable access to your cloud resources. When using Mage Pro in AWS environments, proper route configuration ensures reliable connectivity between your local machine and cloud resources.

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Setting up route acceptance in Tailscale

Route acceptance in Tailscale can be configured in two ways to ensure proper connectivity between your local machine and AWS-hosted Mage Pro environment.

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1. Using the command line

Run the following command on your local machine to accept routes advertised by Tailscale nodes: 
tailscale up --accept-routes

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2. Using the admin console

Step 1: Navigate to the Tailscale admin console (https://login.tailscale.com/admin) Step 2: Go to the “Machines” page Step 3: Find the machine that’s advertising routes (in your case, the “vpn” node) Step 4: Click on it to view details Step 5: Under “Subnet routes” section, approve which subnet routes should be advertised to the entire tailnet

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Understanding route configuration

The two configuration methods work together:
  • Admin UI settings control which machines can advertise routes (a tailnet-wide setting)
  • Command-line option (-accept-routes) determines whether your specific machine will accept those advertised routes

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Configuring Mage Pro for route acceptance

To ensure your Mage Pro environment automatically accepts routes when it starts, add the following environment variable:
  • Key: TS_EXTRA_ARGS
  • Value: -accept-routes

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Verifying route acceptance

After configuring route acceptance, verify it’s working correctly: 
tailscale status
You should no longer see health warnings about routes not being accepted, and you should be able to access the subnet IPs that were being advertised.