kiwime 0.1.0

Compile a person into AI-readable expert context. Local-first web runtime + MCP server.

kiwiMe web host

Run kiwiMe as a local web app — a background service on 127.0.0.1 plus a browser UI — instead of the Tauri desktop shell. This is the primary distribution for developers and technical users (no code signing, no native installer): you start a service and open a browser.

It is local-first: the service binds to loopback only, and all data (credentials, content, indexes) stays on your machine, exactly as in the desktop app. The host runs every sidecar in-process — there are no child processes and no stdio plumbing; see docs/release/webification-plan.md.

Run from a checkout (current)

Prerequisites:

• uv (Python package manager)
• Node ≥ 20 and pnpm — the easiest way to get pnpm is corepack enable (ships with Node), or npm install -g pnpm.
• Python ≥ 3.11 with SQLite loadable-extension support (standard CPython builds have it).

# 1. install the Python workspace (all sidecars + the host)
uv sync --all-packages -p 3.12

# 2. build the frontend once (served as static files by the host)
cd apps/desktop && pnpm install && pnpm build && cd -

# 3. start the host — opens http://127.0.0.1:8765 in your browser
uv run kiwime

If you skip step 2, the host still starts and serves the API, and shows a "UI not built" page with these instructions instead of the app.

Options:

kiwime [--host 127.0.0.1] [--port 8765] [--db PATH] [--no-browser]

• --db PATH — use a specific store SQLite file (default: the platform app data dir, the same one the desktop app uses).
• --no-browser — don't auto-open a browser. The startup log prints an authenticated …/auth?token=… link — open that (or use the token as an Authorization: Bearer header for scripting).
• KIWIME_DIST=/path/to/dist — override where the built UI is served from.

Security

The API requires a per-session token even on loopback: the browser gets it via the /auth?token=… link (exchanged for an HttpOnly cookie), other clients pass Authorization: Bearer <token>. Requests with a non-localhost Host header or a non-JSON body are rejected. A fresh token is minted on every start.

Linux note

Connector credentials go to the OS keyring. On Linux this needs a Secret Service provider (GNOME Keyring / KWallet via libsecret); on a headless box or minimal WSL distro, install gnome-keyring (or configure another keyring backend) before adding sources.

Local models

The host exposes the same one-click Ollama flow as the desktop app (detect / download with progress). Install Ollama and use the in-app model manager to pull Qwen3 / Gemma 3. The curated model list lives in shared/model-catalog.json, shared with the desktop runtime.

Installing as a tool (future)

pipx install kiwime / uv tool install kiwime will be the one-line install once the packages are published to PyPI and the built UI is bundled into the wheel. Until then, use the checkout flow above.

How it relates to the desktop app

The React frontend and all Python sidecars are shared. Only the host differs: the desktop app uses a Rust (Tauri) shell that spawns sidecars as processes; this web host holds them in one Python process and serves the same UI over HTTP + SSE. apps/desktop/src/api/tauri.ts picks the transport at runtime.