mngr_forward

Auth + subdomain-forwarding plugin for mngr.

mngr forward runs a local proxy that serves <agent-id>.localhost:<port>/* and byte-forwards each request to a service URL discovered for that agent (--service NAME, the default workflow) or a fixed remote port (--forward-port REMOTE_PORT, manual mode). Remote agents are reached via a per-host SSH tunnel (Unix-domain socket on the local side, paramiko direct-tcpip channel on the SSH side).

The plugin is opt-in:

mngr plugin enable forward
mngr forward --service system_interface

Quick start (browser user)

mngr forward --service system_interface --open-browser

This:

1. Spawns mngr observe --discovery-only and per-agent mngr event --follow subprocesses. Their lines pass through to stdout as a merged JSONL stream wrapped in a {stream, agent_id?, payload} envelope so consumers can drive their own state from a single stream.
2. Listens on 127.0.0.1:8421 and prints a one-time login URL to stderr (or emits a login_url JSONL event on stdout in --format jsonl).
3. After the browser visits the login URL, future navigations to agent-<hex>.localhost:8421/ are byte-forwarded to that agent's resolved system_interface URL through an SSH tunnel.

Reverse tunnels

--reverse <remote-port>:<local-port> (repeatable) auto-sets up reverse SSH tunnels for every known agent on a remote host. The <remote-port> may be 0 to ask sshd for a dynamic assignment; the actual bound port is reported in a forward.reverse_tunnel_established envelope event.

Manual mode

--no-observe --forward-port REMOTE_PORT runs mngr list --format json once and forwards a fixed snapshot. --no-observe is invalid with --service NAME.

Sub-process integration

Consumers (notably minds run) can spawn mngr forward --format jsonl --preauth-cookie <opaque-token>, parse the envelope JSONL stream off stdout, and pre-set the mngr_forward_session cookie in their browser session so the OTP flow is bypassed.

SIGHUP bounces only the mngr observe child subprocess; SSH tunnels, per-agent event subprocesses, browser sessions, and the FastAPI app stay alive. Used by minds run to make a freshly-written [providers.imbue_cloud_<slug>] block in settings.toml take effect.

On-disk state

$MNGR_HOST_DIR/plugin/forward/signing_key (cookie HMAC key, generated once on first run, persisted across restarts so previously-issued cookies still verify).

OTPs are kept in-memory only and do not survive a restart.

Status

Experimental. See specs/mngr-forward-plugin/spec.md.