---
title: "Introduction"
url: "https://control.actana.ai/docs/introduction"
description: "What Actana Control is: a self-hosted control plane where one web Panel drives Cores that run coding CLIs against repos that never leave their machine."
updated: 2026-09-01T09:02:46+00:00
---

Actana Control is a self-hosted control plane for agentic coding. One web **Panel** drives any number of **Cores** — machines that run vendor coding CLIs (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor CLI, OpenCode) in PTY sessions against git repos that never leave that machine.

MIT licensed. Source lives at [github.com/actana/control](https://github.com/actana/control); images are [`actana/panel`](https://hub.docker.com/r/actana/panel) and [`actana/core`](https://hub.docker.com/r/actana/core) on Docker Hub. `npm view @actana/cli version` prints the current release; pin both images to it with `ACTANA_TAG`.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  B["Browser"] -- panel-link --> P["Panel"]
  P -- "core-link (mTLS)" --> C1["Core"]
  P -- "core-link (mTLS)" --> C2["Core"]
  C1 --> H1["PTY / Harness / repo"]
  C2 --> H2["PTY / Harness / repo"]
```

The Panel is a connection broker: Core registry, Operator login, and presentation. It holds no project or session state. Each Core owns its SQLite, PTYs, and files. The Panel dials the Core; the Core never dials back.

## In this section

- [Concepts](/docs/introduction/concepts) — Panel, Core, Harness, Operator, and the rest of the vocabulary
- [How it works](/docs/introduction/how-it-works) — who dials whom, and who owns which state
- [Security and privacy](/docs/introduction/security-and-privacy) — repos stay on the Core; auth; what phones home

The wire-level detail lives in [Architecture](/docs/architecture). Start on a machine with [Get started](/docs/get-started).