Introduction

Introduction

What malac is, what it can do, and where to start.

malac (Multi-Agent Loop for Autonomous Coding) is an open-source coding agent for the terminal, written in Rust. You describe a task; malac reads your code, edits files, runs commands and checks its own work. It can hand self-contained pieces of work to subagents that run in parallel, and you can watch every one of them live.

Malac is also Hungarian for pig.

$ malac -y calc.py has a bug in add, fix it and verify with a python one-liner
● read calc.py
  ⎿ 1	def add(a, b): (+1 lines)
● edit calc.py
  ⎿ Edited calc.py: (+2 lines)
● bash python3 -c "import calc; assert calc.add(2,3)==5; assert calc.add(-1,1)==0; print('ok')"
  ⎿ ok
Fixed `calc.py:2`: `add` returned `a - b`, now returns `a + b`. Verified with `python3 -c "..."` → `ok`.
─ lora/default · 3.3k context · 366 out · $0.0024 · 2.2s

What you get

• CLI first. malac <prompt> starts working immediately. malac alone opens an interactive session in a full-screen terminal UI, or a line-based one with --plain.
• Workspaces that outlive the terminal. A per-user daemon holds your workspaces: sets of tabs, one per project folder, each with its own agents. Close the terminal and the agents keep working; open another terminal or the web UI and pick up where they are. See Workspaces, tabs and the daemon.
• Remote access. Run the agents on a server and drive them from a laptop, a browser or a phone. Devices pair once with a code and get a token of their own; malac tunnel adds a Cloudflare, ngrok or Tailscale address. See Remote access.
• Project context. malac reads AGENTS.md and the instruction files of Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf and Cline, maps the docs, keeps a project index, and records what it learns in .malac/MALAC.md for the next session and your teammates. See Project context.
• Plugins. Skills, slash commands, agent types, MCP servers and hooks, in Claude Code's format or the open Agent Plugins one, from marketplaces on GitHub, GitLab or any git host. Nothing that runs code turns on without your approval. See Plugins and marketplaces.
• Any provider. OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic-compatible APIs, several providers at once, per-model settings and profiles. Gateways such as LiteLLM, OpenRouter or Together work, and so do local models through Ollama or vLLM. See Configure a provider.
• Permissions and autopilot. Three modes (ask, edits, autopilot) plus allow and deny rules. -y runs without asking; deny rules still apply. See Permissions and autopilot.
• Subagents. The agent delegates work to subagents that run in parallel, each with a fresh context and a model picked for its task. Follow them in the terminal, on the agent map or in the web UI. See Subagents.
• Jobs. Dev servers and watchers the agent starts run as background jobs you can watch and stop. See Jobs.
• Memory. Durable facts are Markdown files, optionally indexed in Milvus for semantic recall. See Memory.
• Computer and browser control. malac-control is a separate MCP service for screenshots, mouse, keyboard and Chrome automation with isolated profiles. malac starts it automatically. See Computer and browser control.
• Web UI and VS Code. A web UI with sessions, the subagent tree, live transcripts, approvals and every setting, and a VS Code extension with a native chat panel that takes the current file as context. See Web UI and VS Code.
• MCP. Connect any MCP server over stdio, streamable HTTP or WebSocket. See MCP servers.
• Self-update. malac update installs the latest release without disturbing running agents. See Updating.
• Configure by asking. "Switch to lora/smart" or "allow cargo commands without asking" works: malac edits its own configuration, with your approval. See Configure malac by asking.

Where to start

1. Install malac.
2. Follow the quick start, or go hands-on with the first tutorial, Your first task.
3. Keep the CLI reference and the configuration reference at hand.

Status

malac is young software. macOS is the primary platform, Linux is supported, and Windows is not supported yet. It is opinionated: it follows its author's workflow and changes with it. Things to know collects the details worth knowing before you rely on it.

malac is MIT licensed. The source is on GitHub.