---
url: https://hyprpilot.kilic.dev/runtime.md
---

# {{ $frontmatter.title }}

Hyprpilot is a **config-driven, fire-and-exec launcher for terminal coding agents**, shipped as a single Rust binary. It resolves a session *profile* from layered config, projects that profile onto the chosen vendor's **native** CLI flags and environment, and `exec()`s into the vendor CLI — `claude`, `codex`, `opencode`, or `amp` — replacing its own process.

## The fire-and-exec model

A launch is one straight line:

1. **Resolve** — pick a profile (the positional `[PROFILE]` id, the configured default, or the interactive picker) and fold config layers, [`patches`](../config/patches), and [`--with-config`](./with-config) overlays onto it.
2. **Project** — translate the resolved profile (model, mode, system prompt, MCP catalogue, tool policy) onto the vendor's own flags and environment variables.
3. **Rename** — optionally retitle the current tmux window / zellij tab to `hyprpilot@<cwd>`.
4. **`exec()`** — replace the hyprpilot process with the vendor CLI. On unix there is no child process left behind; the vendor TUI simply *is* your terminal from that point on.

::: info No daemon, no socket, no UI

There is **no background daemon, no unix socket, and no window or desktop UI** anywhere in hyprpilot. Once the vendor CLI is running, hyprpilot is gone — it inherits your shell environment, hands over the terminal, and its exit code is the vendor's.

The one thing that listens is one you start yourself: an MCP server run with [`--transport http`](./mcp-http). The launcher never starts it and never points a launch at it.

:::

## The one long-lived thing

The components that outlive the launch are the in-tree **MCP servers** — `hyprpilot mcp serve` (general tools), `mcp skills` (the skill catalogue), `mcp harness` (driving other agent sessions), and `mcp passthrough` (declared tools forwarded to HTTP endpoints). The launcher auto-injects a stdio entry for each one your `mcp` config enables, and the vendor spawns those sidecars itself — so your `SKILL.md` catalogue reaches the agent over MCP. See [Skills & the hyprpilot MCP Server](./skills), [Agent Harness](./harness) and [HTTP Passthrough](./passthrough).

## Why you would want it

If you launch the same agent CLI with the same model, working directory, system prompt, and MCP servers every day, hyprpilot turns that incantation into a named profile:

```sh
hyprpilot engineer            # instead of a 200-character vendor invocation
```

If you switch between vendors, profiles keep each vendor's flag dialect out of your muscle memory — the same profile shape projects onto whichever provider the profile names.

## Where to go next

* [Installation](./installation) — AUR packages or a source build.
* [Quickstart](./quickstart) — a minimal config and your first launch.
* [Launching](./launch) — the launch flags, the picker, and the environment knobs.
* [Config](../config/) — the full configuration reference.