manigent-daemon

Connects one computer to Manigent, so you can see what is running on it — and start or stop it — from the web instead of a terminal.

Why this is a separate package

It stays connected when every agent on the machine is dead.

That is the whole feature. An agent's own connection cannot tell you "nothing is running here", because it is gone in that case — which looks exactly like the computer being switched off. Those two states need different words and different remedies, so something on the machine has to keep talking when there is nothing else left to talk.

It follows that this must not be able to break the way the agents can, which is why it is its own package with three dependencies (httpx, websockets, typer). It installs in seconds and starts even when the runner's heavier stack is unusable.

Install

uv tool install manigent-daemon     # or: pip install manigent-daemon

Then, in the Manigent web app, open Computers, press + to get a pairing code, and run:

manigent computer install --code XXXX-XXXX --user <your-username>

(manigent computer … is the same program, reached through the runner's CLI. If the runner is not installed, use manigent-computer … directly.)

What this connection can do

The fixed list. The server can ask this computer to do only these things, and every item is checked twice — once by the server before it will send anything, and again here before anything runs:

• Start one of your agents
• Stop one of your agents
• Restart one of your agents
• Report which of them are running
• Update the Manigent software on it (manigent and its connection software)

Your agents. The agents it runs act as you and can run commands on this computer.

The terminal. On by default: you can open a full shell on this computer, as you, from its page in Manigent. Turn it off on this machine — only here, never from the browser:

manigent computer terminal disable   # ends open sessions within seconds
manigent computer terminal enable
manigent computer terminal status

Sessions are hung up when you end them, after 15 minutes idle, after 8 hours, or when the connection drops. The server records who opened a session and for how long — never what was typed or printed.

Never

• Read or change your agents' environment variables
• Install or change anything else
• Delete an agent — only you can, in the browser
• Reach any other computer or account

Start, stop and restart are performed by shelling the ordinary manigent start / manigent stop commands, so they behave exactly as they do when you type them yourself.

Disconnecting the computer from the web app destroys this machine's key immediately and for good; reconnecting needs a fresh pairing code.

Commands

Where things live

~/.manigent/computer/<your-username>/
  config.json     # this machine's key, for this account (mode 0600)
  computer.pid
  stdout.log      # what the connection did
  stderr.log      # what went wrong

One directory per Manigent account. If two people (or two of your own accounts) use the same computer, each pairs separately and gets its own key, its own connection and its own logs — neither can disturb the other. Every command takes --user <name>; without it, it acts for the account you are logged in as.

The two logs are rotated at 2 MB, stay on this machine, and are never uploaded or shown in the web app. manigent computer logs prints the tail of both.

config.json holds the only secret that lets Manigent ask this machine to do anything. It is written readable by you alone, never logged, and never synchronized anywhere.

Mirrored source

This repository is a read-only mirror, published from the Manigent monorepo. Issues and discussion are welcome here; code changes land upstream.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.