Magic Context Web Dashboard

An unofficial, lightweight web dashboard for Magic Context, modeled on the official Tauri desktop app. It provides a browser-based alternative for environments where the desktop runtime is unavailable.

Reads and writes Magic Context's SQLite database using the same direct-access approach as the official dashboard, then serves a single-page web UI.

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ (for the npx launcher)
• Python 3.8+ (dashboard backend; stdlib only, no dependencies)

Quick start

npx magic-context-web

The command downloads the package, starts the dashboard at http://127.0.0.1:9077/, and opens it in the default browser. Stop it with Ctrl+C. Magic Context must already be installed so its local context.db is available.

npx magic-context-web --port 8080
npx magic-context-web --db /path/to/context.db
npx magic-context-web --no-open

Local development

npm test
node bin/magic-context-web.cjs --no-open

Binds to 127.0.0.1 by default. Passing a non-loopback --host prints a warning (session data is served over plain HTTP; use an SSH tunnel instead). This package is community-maintained and is not an official CortexKit release.

Views

| View | Source tables | |---|---| | Overview | counts + DB/WAL sizes | | Memories | memories (search, status/category filters, pagination, bulk archive/restore, optimistic edit locking) | | Sessions | session_meta + related tables (search, harness filter, pagination, facts, notes, subagents, compartments, tags) | | Compartments | compartments | | Notes | notes | | Primers | primers | | Dreamer | dream_runs | | Historian | historian_runs | | Git Commits | git_commits | | Diagnostics | tags + pending_ops (drop timeline) | | Config | ~/.config/cortexkit/magic-context.jsonc |

Live updates

The page updates in real time: a background thread watches the DB/WAL files for changes (1 s polling) and pushes change events to all connected browsers over SSE (/api/events). On receipt, the frontend re-fetches and re-renders the current view (1200 ms debounce), so new memories, compartments, dream/historian runs, etc. appear automatically.

• Top-right dot: green = SSE connected, grey = reconnecting (fallback polling of nav counts every 30 s still applies).
• Works while editing files in Magic Context sessions, after /ctx-dream runs, or when the historian compacts history.

Editing

The dashboard can also write:

• Memories — create and edit; filter Active/Archived/All; bulk archive or restore; paged browsing; and stale-editor conflict detection via updated_at. Archive is reversible and makes the live plugin stop using the record.
• Notes — create, edit (content / surface condition / status), delete.
• Config — edit magic-context.jsonc in the browser (atomic write).

Write endpoints are POST /api/memories/{create,update,delete,status}, POST /api/notes/{create,update,delete}, and POST /api/config/save. All input is validated against field whitelists; SQL is parameterized. Writes use a separate mode=rw connection with a 5 s busy timeout, so they queue safely behind the live Magic Context process (SQLite WAL).

Note: editing the DB directly does not update the plugin's in-memory cache until it reloads; new sessions pick changes up immediately.

Safety

• Read endpoints open the DB with mode=ro; write endpoints use a dedicated mode=rw connection with busy timeout — never a live lock.
• Loopback-only by default; static file serving has a path-traversal guard.

Architecture

Feature domains are separated from the HTTP shell:

• mcweb/memories.py — paged queries, validation, optimistic locking, bulk status mutations.
• mcweb/sessions.py — paged session discovery and aggregated session detail.
• static/modules/memories.js — Memory Browser state, rendering, forms, and actions.
• static/modules/sessions.js — Session History list and detail rendering.
• server.py — HTTP/SSE/static serving plus legacy read models being migrated incrementally.
• static/app.js — application shell, routing, and remaining views.

Tests

npm test

Differences vs. the official desktop app

• No dream triggering, no log tailing (the official app's dreamer management and log viewer are not reimplemented).
• The official app ships a built-in --serve web mode (same UI over HTTP with bearer-token auth) — if you're on a machine where the desktop binary runs (glibc ≥ 2.32 + webkit2gtk), prefer that: magic-context-dashboard --serve.

Theme

The first visit follows the system preference. Toggle light/dark with the sun/moon button in the top bar. Choice is persisted in localStorage (mc-theme).