NAUT — Torrent Console

Naut — short for nautical; a nod to the sea (and "psychonaut"-style explorer of the swarm).

An advanced, power-user-focused web UI for a torrent client, with a fully stubbed server so you can run it and click around immediately. No build step, no npm dependencies — just Node.

node server/index.js          # → http://localhost:8088
# or
npm start
PORT=9000 npm start           # custom port

The UI requires a login. If you do not configure one, the server prints a generated password at startup for the default admin user. For a stable public deployment, set credentials explicitly:

NAUT_AUTH_USER=admin NAUT_AUTH_PASSWORD='change-me' npm start

You can also set NAUT_AUTH_PASSWORD_HASH to a pbkdf2-sha256$... hash emitted by the same password hashing format used by the server.

The server ships 24 mock torrents in varied states and runs a 1-second simulator that fluctuates speeds, advances downloads, fills the piece map, drifts the swarm, and accumulates session/ratio stats — so the UI is genuinely live, not static.

---

Design rationale (researched against qBittorrent, Flood, Deluge, Tixati)

Advanced users want information density + fast bulk control. The layout is the classic three-pane "fleet console":

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Toolbar: add · resume/pause/recheck/delete · queue · filter · ▼▲ rates · 🐢 │
├────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Sidebar    │ View tabs: Torrents · RSS · Search · Engine      │
│ • Status   │ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ • Categories│ │ Sortable, multi-select torrent grid         │ │
│ • Tags     │ │ (progress bars, state dots, tags, columns)  │ │
│ • Trackers │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │
│            │ │ Detail: General·Trackers·Peers·Content·Pieces│ │
├────────────┴─┴─────────────────────────────────────────────┴─┤
│ Status bar: DHT · port · active · session ▼▲ · ratio · cache · disk │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Feature set built for advanced users

• Dense sortable grid — click any header to sort; columns include seeds/peers (connected vs swarm total), availability, ratio, ETA, category, tags, queue #.
• Multi-select + bulk ops — click / Ctrl-click / Shift-click; toolbar and right-click context menu act on the whole selection.
• Detail panel with the five tabs power users live in:
  • General — transfer + torrent metadata (pieces, hash, privacy, save/content paths, sequential/super-seed/auto-TMM flags, session totals, time active).
  • Trackers — tier, status, seeds/peers/leeches, announce message, plus the DHT/PeX/LSD pseudo-trackers.
  • Peers — IP:port, country, client, connection type, BT flag string, progress, per-peer up/down, relevance.
  • Content — file tree with per-file priority selector (Skip/Normal/High/Max) and per-file progress/availability.
  • Pieces — live piece map (have / downloading / missing).
• Sidebar filters — status (downloading, seeding, completed, active, stalled, paused, errored…), categories, tags, and tracker hosts, each with live counts.
• RSS & automation — feeds, unread articles, and auto-download rules (must/​must-not contain, regex, target category + save path, add-paused).
• Integrated search — multi-indexer search with seeds/leeches, one-click add.
• Engine view — bandwidth, connection, queueing, and privacy/BitTorrent (DHT/PeX/LSD, encryption mode, µTP) preferences.
• Alt-speed (🐢) toggle, global rate display vs. limits, resizable detail pane.
• Keyboard shortcuts: / filter · N add · Space pause/resume · Enter properties · Del remove · Ctrl/⌘-A select all · Esc close.

---

Architecture

server/
  index.js      Zero-dependency http server: static + JSON API + SSE stream
  data.js       Mock fleet generator (torrents, trackers, peers, files, pieces,
                categories, tags, RSS feeds/rules, search, preferences)
  simulator.js  1 Hz mutation of the fleet + derived global stats
public/
  index.html    App shell
  css/styles.css Dark, dense theme
  js/
    app.js      Controller: state, sidebar, grid, selection, context menu,
                views (RSS/Search/Engine), modals, hotkeys, status bar
    detail.js   Detail panel tabs + live refresh + resize
    api.js      fetch wrappers + EventSource live stream
    format.js   bytes/rate/eta/ratio/date/state formatters
    plugins.js  Frontend plugin registry and extension-point loader
  plugins/
    plugins.json Plugin manifest
    health.js    Example plugin

Plugin system

Frontend plugins are ES modules listed in public/plugins/plugins.json. Each module calls window.Naut.registerPlugin() and can contribute:

• views — new top-level tabs in the main tab bar.
• sidebarSections — new sections in the left sidebar, with optional mount code.
• detailTabs — new tabs in the selected torrent detail panel.
• detailPanels — additional information panels appended to the General detail tab.

Minimal plugin:

window.Naut.registerPlugin({
  id: 'example',
  name: 'Example',
  views: [{
    id: 'example',
    label: 'Example',
    render(host, { state, f }) {
      host.innerHTML = `<div class="pane">Loaded ${state.snapshot.torrents.length} torrents</div>`;
    },
  }],
});

Add the module path to public/plugins/plugins.json:

{ "modules": ["/plugins/example.js"] }

API (stub)

Method	Path	Purpose
GET	/api/auth/status	Session state and login metadata
POST	/api/login, /api/logout	Create or clear a session
GET	/api/plugins	Authenticated plugin manifest
GET	/api/stream	SSE — pushes a compact snapshot (~1/s)
GET	/api/snapshot	One-shot snapshot (grid + server stats)
GET	/api/meta	Categories, tags, tracker hosts, prefs, search plugins
GET	/api/torrents/:hash	Full general properties
GET	/api/torrents/:hash/{trackers,peers,files,pieces}	Tab data
POST	/api/action	{action, hashes, params} — pause/resume/recheck/queue/category/limits…
POST	/api/delete	{hashes, deleteFiles}
POST	/api/add	{magnet, name, category, savePath, paused, seqDl, skipCheck}
POST	/api/altspeed	Toggle alternative speed limits
GET	/api/rss, /api/rss/rules	Feeds + auto-download rules
GET	/api/search?q=	Indexer search

Wiring to a real client

The stub mirrors common client semantics. To go live, replace the handlers in server/index.js with adapters to a real backend — the shapes map closely to:

• qBittorrent Web API v2 (/api/v2/torrents/info, /sync/maindata, …)
• Transmission RPC (torrent-get/torrent-set)
• Deluge JSON-RPC

Keep the SSE snapshot contract and the frontend needs no changes.