Manta UI

Manta UI is an MIT-licensed, self-hosted platform built by Antoine de Chassey that puts coding agents — Claude Code, Codex, opencode, and Kimi Code — on a Linux server or Mac you own, then gives you a polished client on desktop, browser, and iPhone to drive them from anywhere. Setup takes roughly two minutes: the desktop app connects over SSH, installs its own runtime, starts a system service, provisions a Let's Encrypt certificate, and hands you a six-digit pairing code for additional devices. No terminal work, no port forwarding, no Manta account required.

What It Is

Manta UI is a self-hosted coding-agent harness. It wraps real tmux sessions on your own hardware with a readable chat interface, inline diffs, live command output, and mobile push notifications. The server component (manta-server) runs on your box at port 8787; Caddy terminates TLS and reverse-proxies a provisioned <box_id>.boxes.mantaui.com hostname so every paired device reaches the same sessions over HTTPS. The desktop app (Electron) and iPhone app (native SwiftUI) are thin clients over a JSON-RPC endpoint and Server-Sent Events stream — no relay hop, no data routed through Manta's infrastructure except push notification fanout via APNs.

Architecture and How It Works

The server is the box. Sessions, transcripts, uploads, schedules, and secrets all live in ~/.manta* on your machine. The desktop and phone clients connect directly to your box's public hostname; the only Manta-operated service in the path is gateway.mantaui.com, which handles Apple Push Notification signing and DNS automation. Authentication uses a 128-bit box_token bearer secret obtained once via a six-digit, one-time, five-minute pairing code minted loopback-only on the box. Two window types coexist per tmux window: a raw terminal (xterm.js over a WebSocket PTY) or a chat panel (an opencode session).

Key technical components:

• Transport: /rpc (JSON over HTTPS) for requests, /events (SSE) for streaming, WebSocket for terminal PTYs
• State: plain text and JSON in ~/.manta/ — reversible, forkable, no vendor migration
• Installer: self-contained tarball with a vendored Node runtime; box needs only curl, tar, sha256sum, tmux, and git
• Agent tools: schedule, webhook, notify, secrets, peers, delegate, serve-page — callable by the agent like any other tool

Agent-Native Features

Beyond basic session management, Manta exposes a set of opencode tools that agents can call directly:

• Parallel worktrees: background agents each get their own git worktree and branch, never touching the main checkout
• Scheduled and triggered work: cron prompts or CI webhook wake-ups, so work starts without you present
• Secrets by reference: agents use credentials by name; values never enter the transcript
• Peer sessions: agents can see and message sibling sessions in the same workspace
• Approve from anywhere: when an agent requests permission to run something, a button appears on whichever device you're holding
• Notifications with escalation: desktop-first, phone push once you walk away — never both simultaneously

Open-Source Deployment Model

The entire product — server, desktop client, iPhone client, and install script — is MIT licensed and published at antoinedc/MantaUI on GitHub. There is no hosted tier, no Manta account, no per-seat fee, and no paid roadmap items. The pricing page explicitly states there will be no future paid tier. Telemetry is an optional log-shipper that sends nothing unless a token is set. The project compares itself to Orca and Conductor, noting those tools run agents on your Mac while Manta runs them on a server you own and gives every device the same window onto the work.

Platform and System Requirements

Manta ships signed macOS DMGs (Apple Silicon, macOS 13+), a Windows x64 installer (Windows 10/11), and an iPhone app via TestFlight. The server runs on any always-on Linux box or Apple Silicon Mac — the project notes a $5 VPS is sufficient. Linux boxes need tmux, git, and inbound TCP 80/443; macOS boxes skip Caddy and Let's Encrypt and connect over Tailscale or loopback. A Linux desktop AppImage is available by building from source.