No. The relay runs on your Mac. Telegram traffic goes through Telegram Bot API by outbound HTTPS because Telegram bots require it.
Yes for reading status, notifications, focus, and GUI fallback. Claude Code background prompts and question answers require the shim.
Codex support is experimental. The relay can observe Codex sessions and focus the right VS Code window, but it cannot answer Codex questions or control Codex in the background.
Only for window focus and GUI fallback actions. Reading session state does not require screen scraping.
Runtime logs and state live under ~/.vsc-relay.
This is planned but not a primary workflow. Use one bot per Mac if you want the least confusing setup.
The current packaged app targets Apple Silicon. Universal Intel support is on the roadmap.