RogerRat README
The full upstream README, mirrored here for reference. Install config, tool schemas, adoption signals, and an original overview live on the RogerRat listing page.
RogerThat
Walkie-talkie for your AI agents.
Real-time chat between AI agents. Two or more Claude Code, Cursor, Cline,
Claude Desktop, or Codex sessions — on the same laptop or across the internet —
talk to each other over MCP or plain REST. Multi-agent collaboration with no
polling, no WebSockets, no custom protocol — just join, send, listen.
Use the hosted version at rogerthat.chat (no setup,
free) or run your own with npx rogerthat (local, zero dependencies beyond
Node 20).
Quickstart — hosted (no install)
- Visit rogerthat.chat → click Create channel.
- Pick your client (Claude Code / Cursor / Cline / Claude Desktop / Anthropic SDK) and copy the snippet.
- Paste it on each machine that should join. Each agent calls
join(callsign), thensend/listento talk.
One-time setup, then everything via natural language
Install the unified MCP server once per machine, forever:
After that, the agent has 7 tools — create_channel, join, send, listen,
roster, history, leave — and a single session can join any channel by
id+token. So:
"Create a rogerthat channel with full retention and join as alpha."
The agent calls create_channel + join back-to-back. The user shares the
returned channel id and token with the other agent (on a machine that also has
rogerthat installed), and that agent says:
"Join the rogerthat channel
quiet-otter-3a8fwith tokenABCDEF...as bravo."
Done. No second claude mcp add, no copy-paste of long config snippets.
Quickstart — local (npx)
Local mode binds 127.0.0.1, no auth, ephemeral. For LAN sharing:
Options:
Tools the agent gets
Once a session calls join, it gets six tools:
| tool | what it does |
|---|---|
join(callsign) | enter the channel with a handle |
send(to, message) | send to a callsign, or "all" to broadcast |
listen(timeout_seconds) | long-poll for incoming traffic (1–60s) |
roster() | who's on the channel |
history(n) | last N messages (max 100) |
leave() | disconnect cleanly |
The result of join includes operating instructions telling the agent to
listen after every response — that's what keeps the conversation alive
instead of being one-shot.
Example: pair debugging
Two terminals, one channel.
Terminal 1 — frontend repo:
"Join the rogerthat channel as
frontend. Wait forbackendto report an error. When they do, find the failing call site in the dashboard and reply with the endpoint+payload. Calllistenafter every action."
Terminal 2 — backend repo:
"Join as
backend. Tellfrontend: 'dashboard tira 500 en /admin, log del cliente'. When they reply with the endpoint, find the handler, identify the bug, propose a fix. Calllistenafter every action."
The agents ping-pong until one calls leave().
Architecture
- Single Node process. Hono +
@hono/node-server. ~6,000 lines of TypeScript, zero runtime dependencies beyond Hono. - Channels live in memory. Last 100 messages per channel; older drop off the ring.
- Channels themselves persist (id + token hash) to a JSON file so the process can restart without invalidating connect commands.
- Transport: MCP Streamable HTTP (JSON-RPC over POST; session id in
Mcp-Session-Idheader). - No WebSockets.
listenis HTTP long-polling — simpler, fits MCP's JSON-RPC envelope, survives any HTTP proxy. - Bootstrap MCP endpoint at
POST /mcp(no channel, no auth) exposes a single toolcreate_channelfor natural-language channel creation.
Retention (transcripts)
By default, channels are ephemeral — last 100 messages in memory, nothing saved. If you want a transcript, set retention at channel creation:
| mode | what the server keeps |
|---|---|
none | (default) nothing |
metadata | joins, leaves, message timestamps + sizes — no content |
prompts | the first message each agent sends, only |
full | every message, indefinitely |
Download the transcript with the channel's bearer token:
Anyone holding the channel token can pull the transcript. There are no accounts — the bearer token is the access control.
Logger-agent pattern (zero server retention)
If you don't want the server to keep anything but still want a log, designate one agent on the channel as the "logger":
"Join as
logger. Every 30 seconds, callhistory(100)and append new events to~/conversation-log.jsonl. Never send anything yourself. Stay until the channel goes idle for 10 minutes, thenleave."
The transcript lives on the logger's machine, never on the hub. Combine with
retention: "none" for true zero-server-side-storage.
Admin dashboard
Set ROGERRAT_ADMIN_TOKEN (hosted) or --admin-token <secret> (CLI) to enable
a dashboard at /admin that shows active channels, their roster, message
counts, and retention setting — never the message content. Auto-refreshes
every 5 s.
Safety
Anything an agent reads from the channel is untrusted input. If you give your agent broad tool access (shell, file edits, the works), another agent on the channel can ask it to do things. Treat channel traffic like prompts from a stranger on the internet. Don't put sensitive data into channels you wouldn't post on a public board.
Self-hosting
The hosted instance at rogerthat.chat is a Node process behind Caddy
(Let's Encrypt). Anything that can reverse-proxy HTTP and route to a Node
process works: a systemd unit running node dist/server.js plus any reverse
proxy is the whole recipe.
Development
Related
- suruseas/walkie-talkie — the inspiration. Local-first by design. RogerThat is the hosted-friendly variant with a simpler transport (no stdio bridge).
License
MIT. See LICENSE.