LocalAnt

Use ChatGPT as the brain. Use your local computer as the hands.

LocalAnt lets you use ChatGPT as the brain and your local computer as the hands.

Demo

It exposes safe, permissioned local skills to ChatGPT through MCP: run approved commands, inspect projects, manage files, call coding agents like Claude Code or Codex, control browser/ADB, publish articles, and create your own local skills — all behind a default-deny security model with local approval and full audit logging.

ChatGPT
  ↓ Apps SDK / MCP Connector (Streamable HTTP /mcp)
LocalAnt  ── Gateway · Risk engine · Approval queue · Audit log · Dashboard
  ↓ Local PC
  ├─ Shell · Filesystem · Git (deny-list by default · allow-list in strict mode)
  ├─ Claude Code / Codex (plan → approve → execute → validate → diff)
  ├─ Browser (Playwright, isolated profile) · Android (ADB) · Computer Use (macOS desktop)
  ├─ Articles (Zenn / Qiita / note, via skill) · Custom Skills
  └─ Adapters: any downstream MCP server (Desktop Commander, etc.)

Related MCP server: MCP Dev-Tools Agent

What is LocalAnt?

A local-first MCP Gateway for ChatGPT. ChatGPT is the conversational UI and decision-maker; your PC is the execution environment. The gateway publishes a catalog of 200+ permissioned tools over the Model Context Protocol, which ChatGPT's Developer-Mode connectors can call.

The design is inspired by OpenClaw (local gateway + skills + registry), Desktop Commander (local PC control + audit + hardening), supergateway (stdio→Streamable-HTTP /mcp), and mcp-proxy (bundling MCP servers) — but the brain is ChatGPT, and every capability is wrapped in permissions, approval, and audit.

Why ChatGPT as brain, local PC as hands?

• ChatGPT is great at reasoning, planning, and conversation.

• Your PC is where your code, files, devices, and tools actually live.

• Handing ChatGPT a raw shell is dangerous. Instead, this gateway gives it a curated, permissioned surface with local approval for anything risky.

Features

• 🔒 Layered security: deny-list by default (sensitive-path blocklist + always-blocked commands), optional strict allow-list mode, path & symlink traversal prevention, secret vault + redaction.

• ✅ Local approval queue: risk-2+ tools require explicit approval in the dashboard or CLI — ChatGPT's confirmation is never trusted alone.

• 🧾 Full audit log: every tool call recorded (with secrets redacted).

• 🧩 Skill system: create, validate, enable, run, install-from-git, publish, and generate skills from ChatGPT (always saved disabled).

• 🤖 Autopilot: one high-level autopilot tool delegates natural-language tasks (plan / execute / review / fix / pr) to a local automation backend you pick in the dashboard — Claude Code / Codex / opencode / OpenClaw / Antigravity / Hermes — with an ordered fallback chain. ChatGPT never names a backend.

• 🩺 Diagnostics: localant_doctor — a read-only, structured health report.

• 🧭 ChatGPT UI widgets: localant_ui opens a LocalAnt Home panel inside ChatGPT; focused panels render approvals, git, shell processes, browser state, MCP servers, skills, and images. See docs/chatgpt-ui.md.

• 🖥️ Local dashboard: status, approvals, audit, skills, secrets, Autopilot.

• 🌐 3-minute setup with Tailscale Funnel by default, plus Cloudflare Tunnel / ngrok fallbacks and clipboard copy.

• 🖱️ Computer Use: screenshot + mouse + keyboard control of the macOS desktop (screencapture + cliclick). Screenshots come back as inline MCP images whose pixels map 1:1 to click coordinates; all input actions are risk 3 and audited. See docs/computer-use.md.

• 🔌 Adapters for arbitrary downstream MCP servers (e.g. Desktop Commander).

ChatGPT as a local coding agent

LocalAnt is also a ChatGPT-native local coding-agent runtime. ChatGPT can read, search, edit, run, test, and diff a project on your machine through MCP — behind the same approval / audit / security pipeline as everything else.

It exposes the standard Codex / Claude Code / OpenCode-style tool names:

No web search / web fetch / todo / "ask the user" tools — ChatGPT already does web search, browsing, planning, and asking you directly, so tool-ifying those would only bloat the surface. LocalAnt exposes only what it uniquely provides: your local files, shell, git, toolchain, language server, browser, device, and agents.

bash runs through a real shell (pipelines and && work) but every command is screened by CommandGuard (blocked tokens, rm -rf, …), the cwd is validated by PathGuard, and the call is gated by the security mode (approval in strict, audited-but-ungated in open, ungated in yolo — with CORE_BLOCKED_COMMAND_TOKENS rejected even in yolo).

Tool profiles keep the advertised surface sharp:

• minimal — the small delegation core (shell / agent / skill + read-only fs).

• coding — the full coding surface above (recommended for ChatGPT-as-coder).

• full — every tool (browser, adb, skill authoring, destructive git, secrets).

localant tools profile coding   # switch profile
localant tools list             # see what's exposed

Optional product surfaces such as LocalAnt Video Studio and the generated-image Asset bridge are disabled for ChatGPT by default. Enable them from Dashboard → Settings → Optional ChatGPT tools when you want those tools advertised over MCP.

Every tool's risk level (0–4) and how each family is gated is documented in docs/tools.md.

Then just ask ChatGPT:

"Look at this repo, fix the bug, run pnpm validate, and show me the git diff."

ChatGPT will check project/git state, grep/glob for the code, edit/apply_patch the fix, bash the validation, iterate on errors, and return git_diff.

3-minute setup

npx -y localant setup

or:

npm install -g localant
localant setup

setup checks your environment, initializes config, generates an auth token, enables built-in skills, starts the gateway + dashboard, opens a public tunnel, copies the MCP URL to your clipboard, and prints the ChatGPT connection steps.

✅ LocalAnt is running

  Local Gateway:  http://127.0.0.1:8787
  Dashboard:      http://127.0.0.1:8788
  MCP Endpoint:   https://your-machine.your-tailnet.ts.net/mcp?key=********

Connect ChatGPT:
  1. Open ChatGPT → Settings → Apps & Connectors
  2. Advanced settings → Developer Mode ON
  3. Connectors → Create
  4. Paste the MCP URL above
  5. Set Authentication to "None"
  6. Name it: LocalAnt

From source (this repo): pnpm install && pnpm build && node packages/cli/dist/bin.js setup

ChatGPT setup

1. ChatGPT → Settings → Apps & Connectors

2. Advanced settings → Developer Mode ON

3. Connectors → Create

4. Paste the MCP URL (https://…/mcp?key=<token>)

5. Set Authentication to None

6. Name it LocalAnt

7. Ask ChatGPT: "Run health check on my local app"

The token is embedded in the URL so the connector authenticates even where custom headers aren't available. You can also send Authorization: Bearer <token>. See docs/chatgpt-setup.md.

Tip — Tailscale Funnel is the default tunnel. Configure your stable Funnel FQDN (machine.tailnet.ts.net) in the dashboard Settings tab or with localant config set tunnel.domain <domain>. The auth token is persistent, so a stable URL means you connect ChatGPT once. Cloudflared, ngrok, localtunnel and serveo remain available as fallback providers. Full instructions: docs/chatgpt-setup.md → Keep a fixed URL.

Security model

LocalAnt has three security modes (set security.mode in config or the dashboard Settings tab):

The default is open: a deny-list model for personal use. There is no directory or command allow-list to maintain — ChatGPT can read/write anywhere and run any command except the always-blocked items below.

Strict-mode approval matrix:

Always enforced, in every mode (including open and yolo):

• Sensitive paths (~/.ssh, ~/.aws, ~/.gnupg, /etc, Keychains, …) are never readable or writable; symlink escapes are caught.

• Core blocked commands — sudo, su, dd, mkfs, fdisk, diskutil, shutdown, reboot — and rm -rf / chmod 777 are always rejected and cannot be removed from the blocklist.

• Secrets live in an encrypted local vault and are redacted from tool output and the audit log.

• Generated/installed skills are disabled by default until you review them.

Full details: SECURITY.md.

Dashboard

A local-only dashboard (http://127.0.0.1:8788) is a full control panel — every setting that's available on the CLI is editable from the web, and vice versa. A live status badge and a pending-approvals counter update automatically.

Tabs: Home · Tools · Security · Approvals · Audit · Secrets · Agents · Settings.

• Home — status, MCP endpoint (copy), tunnel start/stop/restart, Test connection (fetches the public URL to confirm ChatGPT can reach you), health check.

• Tools — browse every exposed tool, with Skills (create, enable/disable, inspect permissions, uninstall) and MCP (add/test/remove downstream stdio servers) sub-tabs.

• Security — read-only view of the active mode, allowed directories/commands (strict mode only), always-blocked command tokens, and the risk policy.

• Approvals — live pending-approval queue (approve/deny, per-session option).

• Audit — full-text search and click-through to the full input/output of any entry.

• Secrets — add/remove with reveal toggle (names only).

• Agents — enable/disable (e.g. Codex), launch plan/execute tasks against a working directory and live-tail their logs.

• Settings — security mode (open/strict/yolo), risk policy, tool profile, auth token reveal/rotate (rotation takes effect with no restart), tunnel provider + fixed-URL config with Save & restart, gateway/dashboard ports, allowed directories/commands, blocked tokens (core tokens shown but locked), and a raw JSON editor with validation.

Skills

Skills are the unit of extension. Layout:

skills/<name>/
  skill.json     # manifest: permissions + risk + tool schemas
  README.md  LICENSE  CHANGELOG.md
  src/index.ts   # defineSkill({...})
  tests/index.test.ts
  examples/

Manage them with skill_list/info/enable/disable/run/validate/... tools or the CLI (localant skills ...). See docs/skills.md.

How to create a skill

import { defineSkill, z } from "@localant/skill-sdk";

export default defineSkill({
  name: "hello-world",
  tools: {
    hello: {
      description: "Say hello",
      riskLevel: 0,
      inputSchema: z.object({ name: z.string() }),
      handler: async ({ name }) => ({ content: `Hello ${name}` }),
    },
  },
});

How to generate a skill from ChatGPT

"Create a skill named qiita-private-post that posts private Qiita articles using a QIITA_TOKEN secret."

ChatGPT calls skill_generate_from_prompt. The gateway scaffolds the manifest, README, source and tests, infers permissions, sets it disabled, and runs validation. You review permissions in the dashboard, then skill_enable (which requires approval). See docs/skills.md.

How to delegate with Autopilot

Pick your automation backend in the dashboard → Autopilot tab (primary + enabled providers + ordered fallback chain + fallback policy). The page shows the resolved chain with live availability and lets you run a read-only test to confirm the configured agent answers. Then ChatGPT delegates with one tool, in plain language — it never names a backend:

autopilot(task:"Plan SEO improvements",      cwd:"/Users/me/Documents/my-app", mode:"plan")
# review the plan, approve, then:
autopilot(task:"Implement the SEO plan",     cwd:"/Users/me/Documents/my-app", mode:"execute")
# or: mode:"review" (read-only), mode:"fix" (diagnose + repair + validate), mode:"pr"

Execution is risk-3 (approval required), runs on a fresh branch, and falls back through the chain on failure per your fallback policy. Push / PR / publish stay behind explicit approval. The low-level bash/git/file/browser/adb tools remain available. See docs/coding-agents.md.

Codex example

Same flow with agent:"codex" once codingAgents.codex.enabled = true and the codex CLI is on PATH.

Article publishing

Article publishing is provided by the bundled article-publisher skill (disabled by default — enable it with skill_enable / localant skills enable article-publisher first):

• Zenn: GitHub-repo method — writes articles/<slug>.md with published:false, can open a PR branch. (zenn_*)

• Qiita: official API with QIITA_TOKEN from the vault; private-first. (qiita_*)

• note: local drafts only (note has no official public write API). (note_*)

Publish actions are risk 4 (double approval). See docs/articles.md.

Asset bridge (images → repo)

One tool, asset_save_image, lands an image produced or referenced in a ChatGPT conversation as a real file on disk. source.kind selects how the bytes arrive:

• base64 — inline data (best for small generated icons/diagrams; base64 is kept out of the audit log).

• url — fetch a public http(s) image, SSRF-guarded (no localhost/private/metadata hosts; redirects re-validated and capped).

• latest_download — adopt the newest image from your Downloads folder.

All routes share one validation path (magic-byte sniff → MIME allowlist → SVG-safety scan → sha256 → atomic write with backup). Risk 2 (no approval in open mode). See docs/asset-bridge.md.

For Video Studio, save the generated image first, then attach it to a scene with video_studio_add_asset. The image is copied into the project workspace and passed to Remotion as a scene visual, so ChatGPT-generated images can become animated short-video material.

For large generated images, use asset_upload_chunk repeatedly and finish with asset_commit_upload; the committed file can then be attached with video_studio_add_asset.

These tools are not advertised to ChatGPT unless the Asset bridge feature is enabled in Dashboard → Settings → Optional ChatGPT tools.

Browser automation

Playwright-based (optional peer dependency), using an isolated profile by default. browser_open/screenshot/extract_text/click/type/... — all risk 3. See docs/browser.md.

Computer Use (desktop control)

Screenshot + mouse + keyboard control of the local desktop (macOS, via screencapture and cliclick). Screenshots are returned to ChatGPT inline as MCP images, resampled so image pixels map 1:1 to click coordinates. computer_screenshot/left_click/double_click/right_click/drag/type/paste_text/key/scroll/... — all input actions are risk 3 and audited. See docs/computer-use.md.

Android ADB

adb_list_devices/screenshot/tap/swipe/input_text/logcat/install_apk/.... Input/installs are risk 3 and audited. See docs/adb.md.

Existing MCP bridge

Register downstream MCP servers (mcp_server_register/list/status/...) to bundle them behind the gateway's safety pipeline. Desktop Commander and any other MCP server are driven through this generic bridge — there is no dedicated adapter. mcp_server_list_tools returns an actionable hint when a server is unregistered or disabled.

CLI

localant setup | start | stop | restart | status | doctor | uninstall
localant deps list | install [browser|desktop]   # optional capability deps (Playwright, cliclick)
localant update [--check] [--pm npm|pnpm|yarn|bun]   # update to the latest published version and restart
localant token rotate | show   # re-issue the auth token (secrets preserved)
localant tunnel status | start | stop
localant config show | set <key> <value>   # e.g. localant config set security.mode open
localant dashboard | logs
localant approvals list | approve <id> [--session] | deny <id>
localant skills list | info <name> | enable <name> | disable <name> | install <git-url> | validate <name> | publish <name>
localant secrets set <name> [value] | list | remove <name>
localant tools list | profile <minimal|coding|full>
localant agents list | detect | run <agent> <cwd> <task> [--execute] | logs <taskId> | stop <taskId>
localant mcp list | test <name> | import-all

Architecture

A pnpm + TypeScript monorepo with project references:

See docs/architecture.md.

FAQ

• Does ChatGPT get a raw shell? Depends on the mode. In strict mode only allow-listed commands run without approval; anything else needs explicit local approval. In the default open mode (and yolo) bash runs arbitrary commands — but the always-blocked tokens (sudo, rm -rf, dd, …) are rejected in every mode and PathGuard still blocks sensitive paths.

• Where is my config? ~/.localant on every platform (override with the LOCALANT_HOME env var). A pre-1.x install under ~/Library/Application Support/LocalAnt / ~/.config/LocalAnt is migrated automatically on first run.

• Do I need Claude Code/Codex/adb/Playwright? Only for those specific tool families; they degrade gracefully with install guidance.

• Is the tunnel safe? A public tunnel exposes the gateway; the auth token is required, the dashboard warns you, and you should stop the tunnel when idle.

Troubleshooting

localant doctor diagnoses your environment. More in docs/troubleshooting.md.

How to uninstall

localant uninstall          # prints steps
localant uninstall --purge  # also deletes the config/data directory
npm uninstall -g localant

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — especially tests and security hardening. See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, coding standards, and the release process, and ROADMAP.md for where the project is headed. Please report vulnerabilities privately per SECURITY.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.