Labby

Labby

Rust MCP gateway with Code Mode, authentication, setup, logs, CLI, HTTP API, and operator web UI.

Canonical remote: git@github.com:dinglebear-ai/labby.git.

The root README is the public entrypoint. The topic docs in docs/ own the detailed contracts; when this file and a topic doc disagree, fix the topic doc first and then refresh this summary.

Contents

• What Labby Does
• Quick Start
• Core Workflows
• Runtime Surfaces
• Configuration
• Current Catalogs
• Architecture
• Development
• Documentation

What Labby Does

Labby is centered on the current gateway/operator surface:

• MCP gateway - connect HTTP and stdio upstream MCP servers, inspect their tools/resources/prompts, apply exposure filters, publish protected MCP routes, and optionally collapse the upstream catalog into Code Mode search and execute.
• Direct stdio proxy - launch one stdio MCP server with labby proxy /path/to/dist.js and expose its unmodified MCP surface over loopback or an owned Tailscale Serve HTTPS port with tailnet, bearer, OAuth, or explicit no-auth policy.
• Authentication and protected routes - run bearer or OAuth authentication, manage route-scoped access, authorize upstream OAuth connections, and publish protected MCP endpoints.
• Code Mode snippets - author, store, and run reusable JavaScript snippets against the upstream catalog, with artifacts persisted under $LABBY_HOME.
• Setup and doctor - bootstrap ~/.labby, provision the host service, and run a health audit across env, reachability, auth, and versions.
• Filesystem service - scoped, path-safety-checked file operations exposed through the same action dispatch as every other service.
• Server logs - search and tail the local labby serve log stream.
• Incus and bare-metal setup - provision and operate a dedicated Labby gateway host without introducing a separate fleet or deployment product.
• Generated discovery - publish code-owned service, action, environment, proxy configuration, API route, OpenAPI, MCP help, CLI help, and feature-matrix artifacts under docs/generated.

Use the generated service, action, and CLI catalogs below for the complete current product surface instead of copying inventories into hand-written documentation. Standalone ACP chat, Marketplace/MCP Registry browser, Fleet, Deploy, and the old Agent Artifact Manager (Stash) remain retired; current Linux principal-scoped File Stash is a separate contract. Bounded provider-backed discovery through the artifacts control-plane service does not restore those products.

Quick Start

Install Labby

Download the reviewed installer snapshot over canonical HTTPS, then run it locally:

curl --proto '=https' --proto-redir '=https' --tlsv1.2 -fSLo labby-install.sh \

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dinglebear-ai/labby/5ee609bb255bebfbd9eef4d805998ac1e084b878/scripts/install.sh sh labby-install.sh

This initial script is trusted through canonical HTTPS delivery and the explicitly reviewed commit snapshot above; the download does not follow a mutable branch. Its reviewed, embedded SHA-256 pins authenticate the verifier bootstrap; the installer never downloads a replacement checksum to decide which verifier to trust. It uses an installed GitHub CLI 2.102.0 or newer, or downloads and verifies pinned 2.102.0 into a private temporary directory. It does not change your PATH or install that helper globally. Required system tools are curl, tar, and sha256sum or shasum; macOS bootstrap also uses unzip.

Labby release archives still require checksum and provenance verification against the exact repository, release workflow, immutable tag and hosted-runner policy. Releases with .sigstore.jsonl bundles need no GitHub account: verification runs without tokens and with an empty credential store. Older releases without bundles require your own GitHub authentication; the installer stops before downloading their archive if authentication is unavailable. No privileged credential is supplied or shared. Installing a binary does not establish complete onboarding; the subsequent product-owned setup checks remain required.

The recommended local setup uses a native service, loopback listener, generated protected credentials, and a short-lived browser handoff. In Settings, connect your Agent provider, choose a discovered model and complete a starter Agent test, register selected supported clients, then use Discover to add and verify an MCP server. Required failures remain visible and resumable; installation alone is not full readiness. No manual configuration-file edits are needed on this path.

Optional agent-assisted guidance

The checked-in install-labby skill helps with guided installation, advanced deployments, and repair. It is optional. To add it to a skill-aware agent:

npx skills add https://github.com/dinglebear-ai/labby --skill install-labby

$install-labby

The skill inspects the selected host, follows binary-owned setup operations, helps with explicitly requested advanced deployment choices, and verifies the same required first-use checks. Built-in Agent configuration and external-client registration are separate steps. Security-sensitive durable writes remain owned by the Labby binary.

See skills/install-labby/SKILL.md for the canonical APM orchestration skill and docs/adr/0001-install-labby-first-class-install-orchestrator.md for the architecture decision.

Install through APM

Teams that standardize on the Agent Package Manager get the skills and the MCP registration in one step:

apm install -g dinglebear-ai/labby

That deploys install-labby, using-labby, using-codemode, and using-snippets into ~/.claude/skills and ~/.agents/skills and registers the labby stdio MCP server (npx -y @dinglebear/labby mcp) for Claude Code and Codex; apm.yml at the repository root is the manifest and apm outdated -g reports new releases. APM does not install the labby binary or provision a gateway host: use the standalone installer above and labby setup for that. The optional $install-labby skill can guide those steps.

Manual Verified Release

For independent verification of the installer itself, use GitHub CLI 2.102.0 or newer. Older versions are rejected by Labby's installer and release gates because they lack the corrected signer and source-ref verification policy. Public provenance bundles allow this verification without GitHub login; legacy attestation lookup requires your own gh auth login or GH_TOKEN.

Linux/macOS:

Release compatibility gate: select a release that publishes labby-install.sh and contains the documented first-run labby setup --role ... interface. Confirm the selected tag exposes the installer and checksum before continuing; do not assume an older release matches the current setup contract.

version=vX.Y.Z

base="https://github.com/dinglebear-ai/labby/releases/download/$version" curl -fSLO "$base/labby-install.sh" curl -fSLO "$base/labby-install.sh.sha256"

For releases publishing bundles; older releases require authenticated verification.

curl -fSLO "$base/labby-install.sh.sigstore.jsonl" gh attestation verify labby-install.sh \ --bundle labby-install.sh.sigstore.jsonl \ --repo dinglebear-ai/labby \ --signer-workflow dinglebear-ai/labby/.github/workflows/release.yml \ --source-ref "refs/tags/$version" \ --deny-self-hosted-runners shasum -a 256 -c labby-install.sh.sha256 LABBY_INSTALL_VERSION="$version" sh ./labby-install.sh

MCP clients that prefer npm launchers can run Labby through the Node wrapper:

npx -y @dinglebear/labby mcp

The npm launcher is a weaker trust path than the installer scripts. It downloads the release archive for the current platform and verifies only the .sha256 sidecar (or the SHA256SUMS manifest) published next to it on the same release; it does not require gh and does not verify GitHub build provenance. Use labby-install.sh on Linux or macOS when provenance verification matters. Current releases do not publish Windows binaries or installers. The Windows installer source uses the same reviewed verifier pins, protected temporary extraction, and account-free bundle policy; Windows runtime qualification is still required before a Windows release claim.

The separately downloaded and attested install scripts resolve an immutable GitHub Release containing the current platform asset, prepare a verified GitHub CLI, verify the archive's attestation against the Labby repository, release.yml, exact tag, and hosted-runner policy, verify its checksum, and install labby onto the user PATH. The shell installer then runs labby setup, which asks whether this machine should run a server or connect to an existing one. Server setup configures authentication and a managed native service, or an Incus container on supported Linux hosts. Client setup saves the explicit gateway URL and configures browser sign-in or a bearer token. Desktop installation is optional and off by default; if the published desktop package is unavailable, setup reports that and still completes. For Labby's supported ChatGPT web connection, configure the server in OAuth mode and expose it through a publicly reachable HTTPS LABBY_PUBLIC_URL; bearer-only mode is for local/CLI clients and is not the supported ChatGPT web path. The web UI offers bearer token sign-in only over HTTPS or a direct loopback connection; behind a TLS-terminating proxy, set LABBY_PUBLIC_URL=https://... to unlock it.

For unattended shell installs, set LABBY_SETUP_ROLE=server or client and the corresponding LABBY_SETUP_* options. For a binary-only install, set LABBY_INSTALL_NO_SETUP=1. Manual and automatic labby host update operations always skip first-run setup. See the setup guide for examples.

Override install behavior with LABBY_INSTALL_DIR, LABBY_INSTALL_VERSION, or LABBY_INSTALL_REPO. Source fallback is off by default. Opt in with LABBY_ALLOW_SOURCE_FALLBACK=1; a pinned LABBY_INSTALL_VERSION is passed to Cargo as the exact tag instead of silently building the default branch.

Each successful install retains the verified binary by SHA-256 plus an owner-only receipt beneath /.labby-install/. At least the prior verified artifact remains available when distribution is unavailable. Restore it without downloading or changing $LABBY_HOME:

LABBY_INSTALL_ROLLBACK=1 sh ./labby-install.sh

Rollback switches only the installed executable and receipt. It does not downgrade or delete configuration, credentials, databases, or other durable state. Inspect the receipt at /.labby-install/receipt.

Release qualification can install an already-downloaded candidate without network or source fallback by setting LABBY_INSTALL_LOCAL_BINARY and its exact lowercase LABBY_INSTALL_LOCAL_SHA256. The installer copies that input once to private staging, verifies the