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Web UI

Honey includes an embedded web server that serves a React-based UI, providing a convenient visual interface for many of the CLI's core features.

The Web UI is loopback-only by default to ensure it runs safely on your local machine. It uses token-based authentication to secure access.

Starting the Web UI​

To start the Web UI, run the following command:

honey web --listen 127.0.0.1:8765 --config ~/.config/honey/config.yaml

Note: You can override the random bearer token by setting the HONEY_WEB_TOKEN environment variable.

Once started, Honey will print the local URL with the access token directly to your terminal:

Honey Web UI (Ctrl+C to stop)
  URL:   http://127.0.0.1:8765/?token=...

Open the URL in your browser to start using the Web UI.

Features​

The Web UI provides several features right from your browser:

  • Backends & Providers: View and manage your configured backend resources. Includes provider and backend filters (dropdowns) and structured CRUD operations that mirror your YAML config.
  • Visual Search: Perform searches across your providers (e.g. k8s, aws, gcp, proxmox) with results displayed dynamically.
  • Config Editor: Edit your config.yaml file directly in the browser.
  • Browser Terminal: An integrated WebSocket-based terminal (/ws/ssh?token=...) allows you to connect directly to SSH nodes and Kubernetes pods via ephemeral exec TTY without leaving your browser.
  • SFTP Upload: Drag-and-drop file upload support for fast SFTP transfers.

API Reference​

The backend provides several JSON REST API routes that you can interact with. When using the API directly, authenticate via the Authorization: Bearer <token> or X-Honey-Token: <token> headers.

  • GET /api/v1/meta: Build and version information.
  • GET /api/v1/providers: List available provider IDs (e.g., k8s).
  • GET /api/v1/backends: Fetch all configured backends.
  • POST /api/v1/search: Query search providers.
  • GET/PUT /api/v1/config: Read or update the raw YAML config file.
  • GET/POST/PUT/DELETE /api/v1/config/backends/{provider}/{index}: Structured CRUD for backends.
  • POST /api/v1/upload: Trigger SFTP file upload.
  • GET /ws/ssh?token=...: WebSocket connection for terminal sessions.

Local Development​

If you are developing or modifying the Web UI, the frontend is built using Vite and React (located in the webui folder).

  1. Start the Go backend on the default port: 
    honey web --listen 127.0.0.1:8765
  2. In a separate terminal, navigate to the webui directory and start the Vite dev server. The Vite configuration automatically proxies API requests to the Go backend. 
    cd webui
    npm install
    npm run dev
  3. Open the Vite local URL shown in your terminal (typically http://localhost:5173).

Building UI Assets​

For production builds, the UI assets are bundled into internal/webserver/static. This is typically handled by CI automatically, but you can trigger it manually with:

make webui