Admin UI

Parsec ships an embedded single-page application at /admin for operator-grade diagnosis. This is not an end-user surface. The UI is intentionally minimal — vanilla HTML, JavaScript and CSS, no build pipeline, no frameworks, served from embed.FS.

The admin UI is off by default. Operators opt in per deployment. When disabled the entire /admin/* tree returns 404, so no bytes from the asset bundle reach the response graph.

Enabling

YAML:

server:
  admin_ui:
    enabled: true

CLI:

parsec serve --admin-ui

Env:

PARSEC_ADMIN_UI=true parsec serve

The CLI flag overrides the YAML setting when explicitly passed.

Confirming it’s on

Hit /manifest; look for admin_ui_enabled: true:

curl -s http://localhost:8000/manifest | jq '.payload.admin_ui_enabled'

Pages

Auth model

The UI is a thin wrapper over the Twirp surface. Every action invokes the same POST /twirp/parsec.ParsecService/<Method> route a curl operator would call, with the mgmt bearer attached as Authorization: Bearer <token>. The bearer lives in sessionStorage which the browser clears when the tab closes — so leaving the UI open is identical to leaving a shell with PARSEC_TOKEN exported.

The login form itself is plain static HTML; the Twirp calls enforce the bearer, not the asset routes. A 401 from any RPC redirects the page back to login.html and clears the stored token.

Layout sketch

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| parsec admin                                                 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Channels  Keys  DLQ  Limits                       sign out   |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Operator-grade diagnostic UI. Pick a section above.          |
|                                                              |
| {                                                            |
|   "format_version": "1.0",                                   |
|   "kind": "parsec.manifest",                                 |
|   "payload": {                                               |
|     "service": "parsec",                                     |
|     "active_key_id": "k-...",                                |
|     "admin_ui_enabled": true,                                |
|     ...                                                      |
|   }                                                          |
| }                                                            |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

Limits

• No WebSocket subscriber view — the UI uses the Twirp surface only.
• No multi-user roles inside the UI. The mgmt bearer IS the role. Want different views for different operators? Mint mgmt tokens with pattern scopes and let the bearer’s grants decide what each call succeeds at.
• No SSO from the UI. Use the OIDC bridge to obtain a mgmt bearer outside the UI and paste it in.
• No history. Refresh-survival of state is not a goal — the UI is a diagnostic, not a console.

When to use it

• A pager fires; you want to see channel state without curl + jq.
• You’re rotating keys and want to confirm the new key landed.
• You suspect a sink is backed up; you want a quick DLQ peek.
• You’re showing parsec to a colleague and screenshots beat shell.

When not to use it:

• Building a UI for application users. Use the websocket transport
  • the issued credentials. The admin UI is operator-only.
• Automating any workflow. Use the CLI or RPC directly.
• Production deployments that don’t want the bytes on the wire. Leave server.admin_ui.enabled at its default false.