Headless gRPC Server

OpenClaude can be run as a headless gRPC service, allowing you to integrate its agentic capabilities (tools, bash, file editing) into other applications, CI/CD pipelines, or custom user interfaces. The server uses bidirectional streaming to send real-time text chunks, tool calls, and request permissions for sensitive commands.

1. Start the gRPC server

Start the core engine as a gRPC service on localhost:50051:

npm run dev:grpc

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
GRPC_PORT	50051	Port the gRPC server listens on
GRPC_HOST	localhost	Bind address. Use 0.0.0.0 to expose on all interfaces (not recommended without authentication)

2. Run the test CLI client

A lightweight CLI client is provided that communicates exclusively over gRPC. It acts just like the main interactive CLI, rendering colors, streaming tokens, and prompting you for tool permissions (y/n) via the gRPC action_required event.

In a separate terminal, run:

npm run dev:grpc:cli

Note: The gRPC definitions are located in src/proto/openclaude.proto. You can use this file to generate clients in Python, Go, Rust, or any other language.