Daemon

By default, interpreter runs everything in the foreground process: the terminal UI and the runtime live in the same process, and exiting the UI ends the session cleanly. You do not need a daemon for normal use.

For setups where several clients should share one runtime — for example an editor integration and a terminal attached to the same machine — Open Interpreter can also run its app-server as a background daemon that clients connect to.

Managing the daemon

interpreter app-server daemon start
interpreter app-server daemon restart
interpreter app-server daemon stop
interpreter app-server daemon version

start launches a daemon listening on a local unix socket and returns once it is healthy. Repeated start calls reuse a healthy running daemon instead of spawning a second one.

Connecting a client

Point any app-server client, including the terminal UI, at the daemon's endpoint:

interpreter --remote <ws-url-or-unix-socket>

See Server deployments for remote endpoints and SDK for programmatic clients.

Where the daemon lives

The daemon's runtime files live under your Open Interpreter home directory, which defaults to ~/.openinterpreter and can be overridden with the INTERPRETER_HOME environment variable. The daemon log is the first place to look when debugging startup problems.

Troubleshooting

• start reports the app server is running but not managed — another process is already listening on the daemon socket. Stop that process or use a different home directory.
• Something is wedged after an update or crash — run interpreter app-server daemon stop and start again.