DeepSeek-TUI/docs/WEB.md

Local browser client

codewhale web opens Codewhale's embedded browser client over the canonical Runtime API. It is a local surface: the server always binds to 127.0.0.1, cannot be rebound to a LAN address, and cannot run with Runtime authentication disabled.

Start it

From the workspace Codewhale should operate in, run:

codewhale web

The default address is http://127.0.0.1:7878. To avoid a local port collision, choose another loopback port:

codewhale web --port 8788

Codewhale starts the Runtime API, serves the dependency-free client embedded in the installed binary, prints a single-use launch URL, and asks the operating system to open that URL in the default browser. If the browser does not open, use the printed URL within ten minutes. Stop the process with Ctrl+C; the browser session ends with it.

What the browser can do

The rail brand is a temporary C-whale. Sky-blue on Ocean is a stand-in, not final identity. Replace crates/tui/src/runtime_web/codewhale-mark-*.png when a real mark exists.

The embedded client provides a responsive thread and search rail, Runtime-owned session facts, transcript and tool receipts, and a composer. It can create, select, rename, and archive threads; start or steer turns; interrupt work; resolve approvals; and answer Runtime user-input requests.

The browser is another view of the same local Runtime. It does not create a second cloud account, copy provider credentials into browser storage, or weaken the configured approval and sandbox policies.

Authentication boundary

The browser-launch URL contains a random, short-lived, one-time bootstrap capability. It never contains the Runtime bearer token. A loopback request exchanges the capability for an HttpOnly, SameSite=Strict, process-local session cookie and immediately invalidates the capability.

Reused, expired, malformed, and non-loopback bootstrap attempts fail closed. The Runtime token is not placed in rendered HTML, browser storage, URL queries or fragments, or browser-launch arguments. The one-time bootstrap value is printed in the local terminal and briefly passes through the operating system's browser launcher. It is single-use and expires after ten minutes, but a hostile process already running as the same OS user remains inside the local trust boundary.

Cookie-authenticated state-changing requests must also present the exact local web origin. Cross-origin browser requests are rejected. Existing explicit bearer and Runtime-token-header clients retain their normal Runtime API behavior.

Local means local

codewhale web accepts --port and optional --tailscale. There is no --host or insecure-auth option on this command. Do not treat it as a public website or expose its port directly through router forwarding, a public reverse proxy, or a generic tunnel.

Tailnet (--tailscale)

codewhale web --tailscale keeps the HTTP listener on 127.0.0.1 and publishes the same client onto the current Tailscale tailnet. Reachability is ACL-gated. This is not Funnel and not ngrok.

This is not account remote control. /rc pairs a Cloud/account session to this runtime through your Codewhale identity. --tailscale only puts the loopback web UI on machines already in your tailnet. Offer both: they answer different trust questions. Opening the tailnet URL in the browser shows a QR code for the same MagicDNS origin so a phone on that tailnet can scan in.

Preferred path (opt-in Cargo feature tailscale on codewhale-tui / codewhale-cli): an embedded tsnet node from the official tailscale 0.5.0 crate. The crate exposes Device::tcp_listen and tailscale::axum::Listener, and Config.requested_hostname is set to codewhale, so MagicDNS is codewhale.<tailnet>.ts.net (NodeInfo::fqdn). Auth is CODEWHALE_TSNET_AUTHKEY or TS_AUTHKEY. Official 0.5.0 does not implement HTTPS certificates (listed as unsupported in the crate README), so the embedded listener is HTTP on port 80 over the WireGuard overlay (http://codewhale.<tailnet>.ts.net). The crate also requires TS_RS_EXPERIMENT=this_is_unstable_software (set automatically for this path) and currently supports Linux (x86_64/ARM64) and macOS ARM64.

Fallback (always compiled; precursor design from PR #5628): if embed is not compiled, is disabled with CODEWHALE_TSNET_DISABLE, or cannot auth, Codewhale asks the local Tailscale CLI to publish HTTPS:443 to the loopback port:

codewhale web --tailscale

CLI serve uses the machine MagicDNS name (https://<machine>.<tailnet>.ts.net), not codewhale.<tailnet>.ts.net. Stopping the process turns off only the HTTPS:443 serve mapping (tailscale serve --https=443 off). It does not run tailscale serve reset.

Cookie-authenticated requests must present the advertised tailnet origin (*.ts.net). Bootstrap from a tailnet Host is allowed when that origin was published; default codewhale web without --tailscale remains loopback-only.

The separate codewhale app-server --mobile and --http modes have different deployment and authentication contracts. Read RUNTIME_API.md before operating either one, especially before selecting a non-loopback bind.

Troubleshooting

• If port 7878 is occupied, pass an unused --port value.
• If the browser does not open, copy the printed single-use bootstrap URL into a browser on the same machine within ten minutes. Start codewhale web again if that URL has already been used or expired.
• If the page loads but a provider is unavailable, inspect codewhale doctor and /provider; the web command does not configure or move provider credentials.
• If a session expired, stop and restart codewhale web to mint a new process-local session. Reusing an old bootstrap URL is expected to fail.

For integration endpoints, headers, events, and the complete web-session contract, see RUNTIME_API.md.