ak config

Use ak config to open AgentKit's visual dashboard. Depending on the binary, terminal, and flags, the command either opens a native Wails window or runs the HTTP dashboard in the foreground.

Usage

ak config

The command accepts no positional arguments.

Command flags

Shared flags are described in CLI conventions. --yes does not approve dashboard mutations; each UI operation has its own API contract.

Understand native and HTTP selection

Bare ak config opens a native window only when all of these are true:

• the binary was built with the wails build tag;
• stdout is a TTY;
• --no-window is absent;
• --port was not explicitly supplied;
• effective --no-interactive is false.

The standard CLI-only binary is not Wails-enabled, so it uses the HTTP path. --json implies --no-interactive and therefore also selects HTTP. An explicit --port 8766 selects HTTP even though it equals the default.

For a predictable headless invocation:

ak config --no-window --no-open --no-interactive --json

Treat the dashboard as a mutating surface

Opening the dashboard is not equivalent to reading config.yaml. The native and HTTP surfaces expose operations for account access, config and settings, projects, kits, analytics, updates, migrations, MCP, content, and session redaction. Actions you choose in the UI can write user and project files, make network requests, run tools, or apply lifecycle operations.

The dashboard host also runs automatic analytics reconciliation while open, which can read local coding-agent sources and update the private analytics index. Review the confirmation and recovery information shown by each action; launching the dashboard does not create one blanket snapshot for later rollback.

HTTP security and browser boundary

The HTTP server listens on 127.0.0.1:8766 by default. Its token is resolved from --auth-token first, then AK_DASHBOARD_TOKEN. Unlike ak api start, it does not read a token from config.yaml or support @file syntax, and a raw flag token can be visible in process listings.

Mutation requests additionally require Content-Type: application/json and reject cross-site fetch metadata or an origin that does not match the request host.

Process state and browser fallback

The HTTP path writes ~/.agentkit/dashboard/state.json atomically with the PID, port, bind address, and start time. State-write failure is logged but does not stop the listener. Clean shutdown removes the file after a graceful drain of up to 30 seconds.

Unless --no-open, --no-interactive, --json, or --quiet is set, the HTTP path starts the operating system's default browser. Browser-launch failure is a nonfatal warning. The command then remains in the foreground; it has no daemon flag. Use ak config start, status, and stop for the explicit HTTP lifecycle, while remembering that status and stop trust the recorded PID.

The native path writes no dashboard state file. Closing the window ends the command; ak config status and ak config stop do not manage that window.

Human and JSON output

The native path has no standard CLI success envelope; Wails owns the window lifecycle and can log to stderr.

The HTTP path writes startup success to stdout. JSON mode emits one line and then stays attached to the server:

{"schema_version":1,"kind":"config.start","data":{"status":"running","bind_addr":"127.0.0.1:8766","url":"http://127.0.0.1:8766","pid":12345}}

Server logs remain plain text on stderr in JSON mode, so consume streams separately. Runtime JSON errors use schema_version, error, error_code, and exit_code; flag-parse errors can remain plain-text usage.

Exit behavior

Related commands

• CLI conventions