Dev mode: local agent auth server in one command - theAuth

Start a local server with a demo user, a delegation and a policy check. No config, database or account is needed.

npx theauth dev

The server listens on 127.0.0.1 with an in-memory SQLite database. It seeds:

A demo user, demo@theauth.dev.
A planner-agent owned by that user, with read access to repos and write access to issues.
A worker-agent that starts with no permissions of its own.
A delegation from the planner to the worker that grants only read on mcp:github:repos.

It then runs three guarded tool calls and prints each result:

Call	Result	Why
worker reads a repo	allowed	The delegation covers it
worker deletes a repo	denied	The delegation does not cover it
planner writes an issue	allowed	The planner holds that grant itself

Every call lands in the audit log. The command verifies the audit hash chain and reports the count.

Command-line options

Option	Default	Notes
`--port <n>`	`3100`	Also settable with the `THEAUTH_DEV_PORT` environment variable
`--smoke`	off	Run the walkthrough, check the server answers, then exit with code 0 or 1

Dashboard

When the dashboard build is present, the walkthrough prints a dashboard URL for browsing agents, delegations and audit entries. Without the build, only the API URL is printed and everything else still works. Try curl http://localhost:3100/api/agents.

Limits

Dev mode turns off authentication on the management routes and binds to localhost only. Do not expose it.
Data is in memory and is gone when the process exits. Press Ctrl+C to stop.
For a real setup, run npx theauth init.

Last modified on October 17, 2026