bolt serve runs a headless Bolt server that exposes the full engine over HTTP: sessions, agents, tools, provider access, MCP, and streaming events. Anything Bolt can do interactively, it can do over the API.
Start a server
Binding to 0.0.0.0 exposes Bolt on your network. Always set BOLT_SERVER_USERNAME and BOLT_SERVER_PASSWORD before doing so.
Attach a TUI
From any machine that can reach the server:
Or run a one-shot prompt against a remote server:
Basic auth
Set credentials via environment variables (see Env Variables):
All clients must send matching credentials.
- Remote Sessions — attaching, mDNS discovery, and shared servers.
- Web UI — the browser front-end.
- ACP — driving Bolt from Zed and other editors.
