---
title: "Introduction to Forge"
description: "Visual agent builder for creating, editing, and deploying Astromesh agents."
---

## What is Forge?

Astromesh Forge is a visual agent builder — a lightweight single-page application (SPA) built with Vite + React that connects directly to an Astromesh node's API. It provides a graphical interface for creating, editing, and deploying agents without writing YAML by hand.

Forge is the primary interface for designing, testing, and deploying Astromesh agents.

## Target Audience

- **Non-technical users** who need to build and deploy AI agents without editing configuration files or managing infrastructure.
- **Semi-technical users** who prefer a visual approach to designing complex multi-agent orchestrations.
- **Technical users** who want a faster way to prototype agents before fine-tuning in YAML.

## Key Features

### 7-Step Creation Wizard

A guided step-by-step wizard walks you through every aspect of agent configuration: identity, model selection, tools, orchestration pattern, settings (memory, guardrails, permissions), prompts, and review/deploy.

### Drag-and-Drop Canvas

A visual editor with two zoom levels:

- **Macro view** — Agent orchestration. Each agent is a node on the canvas; connections define relationships between agents.
- **Micro view** — Pipeline drill-down. Double-click an agent to see its internal execution pipeline (guardrails, memory, prompt engine, model router, tools).

### Developer Console

A built-in playground for live agent testing and debugging:

- **Interactive chat** — Send messages to deployed agents and see responses in real time.
- **Parameter overrides** — Change model, temperature, max tokens, and toggle tools without editing the agent config.
- **Trace timeline** — Hierarchical span tree showing the full execution pipeline with token usage, latency, and tool call details.
- **Run comparison** — Select two runs for side-by-side span-by-span diff with delta stats.

### Templates Gallery

A curated collection of 15 pre-built agent templates organized by business use case (sales, customer service, collections, marketing, and more). Select a template, customize a few variables, and deploy.

### Multi-Target Deployment

Deploy agents to three targets:

- **Local** — The Astromesh node you are connected to.
- **Remote Node** — Any reachable Astromesh node on the network.
- **Nexus** — Managed cloud deployment (coming soon).

## Architecture

Forge is a pure client application. It has no backend and no database of its own. All state lives in the Astromesh node, and Forge reads and writes via the existing `/v1/*` API endpoints.

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Astromesh Forge                      │
│                                                         │
│  ┌──────────────────────┐       ┌──────────────────────┐│
│  │   Forge SPA          │─HTTP─>│   Astromesh Node     ││
│  │   (Vite + React)     │       │   API (/v1/*)        ││
│  │                      │<JSON──│                      ││
│  └──────────────────────┘       └──────────────────────┘│
│                                                         │
│  No backend. No database. Pure client.                  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

## What Forge is NOT

- **Not a monitoring tool.** Metrics, logs, and traces are handled by Cortex (a separate product).
- **Not a backend service.** Forge has no server component — it communicates directly with the Astromesh node API.
- **Not an auth system.** Authentication and tenancy are handled by the node itself or by Nexus.

## Distribution

Forge can run in two modes:

- **Embedded** — Built static files are served by the Astromesh node at `/forge`. No separate setup required.
- **Standalone** — Run independently via `npx astromesh-forge --node <URL>` or build and host the static files on any HTTP server.

See the [Deployment](/astromesh/forge/deployment/) page for full details on both modes.
