Local Workspace MCP Manager

A Windows desktop app that lets ChatGPT Web (Developer Mode) securely read, search, list, and edit files inside folders you explicitly approve — and optionally run approved developer commands. Built as a single-process Rust/Tauri application embedding an MCP server (Streamable HTTP on 127.0.0.1) that is published to ChatGPT through Tailscale Funnel.

There is exactly one MCP doorway to your filesystem: a fail-closed policy pipeline. Every MCP tool call goes through it. The desktop UI is a separate administrative control plane for workspace permissions, connection settings, and lifecycle; UI audit rows are operational history rather than the MCP pipeline's fail-closed response gate.

How the connection works

• The MCP server binds loopback only (127.0.0.1:<ephemeral port>).

• A bundled Tailscale Funnel sidecar publishes that loopback server to the public internet at https://<your-hostname>.ts.net (Funnel requires a one-time tailnet admin enablement: HTTPS certificates + the funnel node attribute).

• The public URL embeds a secret capability token. Funnel is public ingress — the secret URL is what protects the endpoint, so treat it like a password: anyone who obtains it can call your MCP connection. Rotate it any time from Security → Rotate connection URL.

Related MCP server: local-mcp-chatgpt-tunnel

Tech stack

• Shell: Tauri 2 (Rust) with a system tray (open, start/stop tunnel, pause MCP access, quit), close-to-tray, launch-at-login, start-minimized-to-tray, and single-instance enforcement

• UI: React 18 + TypeScript (strict), styled with Tailwind CSS v4 and vendored shadcn/ui primitives (new-york/zinc, 2px-radius "Quiet Console" tokens); toasts via sonner; bundled Inter Variable / JetBrains Mono Variable fonts; Light/Dark/System theme persisted in settings

• Core pipeline: crates/core — the fail-closed policy pipeline (pause → workspace → capability → confinement → sensitive-file deny list → execution) with an append-only SQLite audit log

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11

• Rust toolchain with the MSVC target (rustup default stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc) and Visual Studio Build Tools (C++ workload)

• Node.js (LTS) + npm

• A Tailscale account (free tier works); a tailnet admin must enable Funnel once (HTTPS certificates under DNS settings + the funnel node attribute under Access controls)

Build & run

npm install

# Development (hot-reload UI):
npx tauri dev

# Release build (produces an NSIS installer):
npx tauri build

Artifacts land under src-tauri/target/release/ (executable) and src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis/ (installer).

Sidecar binaries

The Tailscale Funnel sidecar (Go, in sidecars/tailscale-funnel) is built by the packaging step (npm run build:sidecar → scripts/build-tailscale-sidecar.ps1) and is the only connection sidecar bundled as binaries/tailscale-funnel-sidecar. The retired OpenAI/Cloudflare tunnel runtime is no longer compiled or packaged; legacy settings parsing remains only for upgrade compatibility.

First-run setup

1. Launch the app and complete the onboarding wizard: add at least one Workspace (Read starts on, Write/Execute off), then sign in to Tailscale when prompted.

2. Press Start on the Dashboard. The app starts the local MCP server, spawns the Funnel sidecar, and walks you through any one-time tailnet approvals.

3. When the card turns Online, copy the secret capability URL into ChatGPT (Developer Mode → create a connector of type MCP / remote endpoint) and keep it private.

Everyday behavior is configurable in Settings:

• General: auto-start the tunnel when the app opens, start with Windows, start minimized to the tray, keep running in the tray when the window closes

• Appearance: Light / Dark / System theme

• Connection: the Funnel hostname label (changes require a Tailscale identity reset)

The system tray mirrors the essentials: open the window, start/stop the tunnel, pause/resume MCP access, quit.

MCP tool surface

Ten tools are exposed. list_workspaces returns approved workspace ids (redacted — never absolute paths; it is pause-gated and audited like every tool). The nine workspace-scoped tools are list_directory, find_files, search_text, read_file, read_files (≤8 per call), create_file (≤10 MB), apply_patch, run_command (approved basenames: git, cargo, rustc, npm, npx, node, pnpm, yarn, python, python3, pip, go, dotnet), and run_powershell (requires the workspace's Full PowerShell mode). Read tools return bounded results (read_file returns a ≤256 KB window with a truncation flag) and carry a revision (sha256) that apply_patch requires as base_revision.

Security model

• Loopback-only binding: the MCP server listens strictly on 127.0.0.1 — never on all interfaces. The only external exposure is the sidecar's outbound HTTPS funnel.

• Secret capability URL: the public endpoint embeds an unguessable capability token; there is no login flow on the endpoint. Rotate it from the Security page if it leaks.

• Pause kill switch: one toggle (UI, tray) suspends all MCP tool calls (ACCESS_PAUSED), including list_workspaces; UI operations keep working. Pause wins even in unrestricted mode.

• Fail-closed pipeline: every tool invocation passes one pipeline — pause check, workspace lookup, capability gates (READ_DISABLED/WRITE_DISABLED/EXECUTE_DISABLED), path confinement (canonicalized, component-wise containment; symlinks/junctions cannot escape), sensitive-file deny-list, execution policy — then writes exactly one audit row. Any pipeline failure short-circuits to a structured error, and an unrecordable audit row fails the call.

• Sensitive-file deny-list: .env*, *.pem, *.key, id_rsa*, .git/config, credentials*, *.pfx, *.p12, secrets.*, and all of node_modules/** are blocked at any depth, for reads and writes alike. Overriding requires unrestricted mode (see below) or a code change.

• Patch-first editing: edits are anchored string replacements (apply_patch), not whole-file writes; every edit carries a base_revision (SHA-256 of content as last seen) and fails with FILE_CHANGED_SINCE_READ if the file changed externally. New files are written atomically via temp-file + rename.

• Append-only audit log: every MCP request writes exactly one audit row (allow / deny / error) before its response is sent; rows can never be updated or deleted. Rows produced in unrestricted mode are marked. The latest 100 events are visible in the UI.

• Bounded execution: commands run without a shell (no quoting/parsing surface), inside a Windows Job Object (timeout kills the whole process tree), with sanitized environment, 60 s default / 10 min max timeout, and 512 KiB captured per output stream. PowerShell scripts travel through stdin only — never argv, audit detail, or diagnostics — and child console windows are never shown.

• Unrestricted access (opt-in): a Security-page switch, gated behind a typed confirmation and a persistent red banner. It relaxes capability gates, the sensitive-file deny list, the approved-command allowlist, and the Full-PowerShell workspace gate — for every workspace. The folder boundary (paths still resolve inside registered workspaces), the pause kill switch, and audit recording remain in force. Leave it off unless you fully trust your conversations.

• Secret handling: the capability token never appears in UI read-back paths, command lines, or diagnostics. Connection secrets live in a DPAPI-protected store under the current user's LocalAppData; settings.json holds only non-secret preferences.

• Hardened webview: a non-null Content-Security-Policy (default-src 'self', IPC-restricted connect-src, inline styles allowed for Radix positioning); the opener plugin allowlists only login.tailscale.com, tailscale.com, and *.ts.net URLs.

Known limitations (honesty notes)

• Working-directory confinement is not a Windows security sandbox: an executed program can still open paths outside the workspace with your account's permissions.

• Funnel is public ingress; the endpoint's only protection is the secrecy of the capability URL. Rotate it if in doubt.

• Real Tailscale-tailnet + ChatGPT connector acceptance remains environment-dependent and must still be run before calling a release production-certified; the automated local lifecycle/MCP suites do not substitute for that external check.

Error codes

Tool errors surface as structured results { code, message, detail? } with these stable codes:

Development

npx tsc --noEmit        # frontend type gate
npm run build           # frontend production build
cargo test --workspace  # 240+ Rust unit + integration tests

The integration suites drive the real sidecar spawn/parse pipeline against a fake sidecar fixture — no Tailscale network needed.