🍝 Marinara Engine

Fun. Intuitive. Plug-And-Play.

A local, AI-powered chat, roleplay, and game engine built around one idea: you install it, you run it, and it just works. Oh, and don't forget about the part where you have fun! ALSO, HEY, LOOK, IT'S FREE.

Created with agentic use in mind, allowing multiple requests at once. Everything is connected. Chat with your characters OOC about your roleplays. Have them create RP scenes for you. All designed with simplicity in mind: we don't want to spend hours on setup, we just want to goon play.

⚠️ Alpha Software — Early release. Expect rough edges, missing features, and breaking changes. Bug reports and feedback are very welcome!

Table of Contents

• 🍝 Marinara Engine
• Table of Contents
• Latest Release
• Roadmap
• Installation
• Features
  • Chat \& Roleplay
  • Visual \& Immersive
  • AI Agent System
  • Prompt Engineering
  • Connections \& Providers
  • Export \& Data
• Documentation
• Community \& Support
• Contributors
• License

Screenshots

Roleplay Mode — Character sprites, custom backgrounds, weather effects, and AI agents

Home screen   ·   Guided onboarding

Conversation Mode — Discord-style DMs with selfies and image generation

Bot Browser — Search and import characters from Chub.ai

Game Mode — AI Game Master, party of characters, generated backgrounds, weather, and time of day

NPC dialogue tracking   ·   Party member card with stats, levels, and abilities

Fully responsive — Conversations, Roleplay, and Game Mode all work on phones and tablets via PWA

Latest Release

Current stable release: v2.0.9.

See CHANGELOG.md for detailed release notes. Tagged releases use the vX.Y.Z format and are published on the Releases page. Android APKs are Termux bootstrap + WebView shells: they can download Termux from F-Droid, launch Android's installer, start the Termux setup flow after required permission prompts, then open the local Marinara server on the same device.

Roadmap

• Free-to-download mobile apps for Android and iPhone
• An engine feature for building and sharing full games with custom sprites, soundtracks, and scenarios
• New game modes: tabletop-style, point-and-click, and classic text adventures
• Ongoing improvements and bug fixes

More detailed public roadmap.

Installation

Recommended Android path: download the Android APK from the latest GitHub Release, open it, then tap Install / Start Marinara. The APK can download Termux from F-Droid, hand it to Android's installer, request Termux command permission, start the setup command, and open the local Marinara server when it is ready. If Android blocks that handoff, the APK copies a fresh-Termux setup command that can be pasted into Termux manually. Android still shows its required install/permission prompts.

Each guide covers installation, updating, and LAN access for that platform. See Configuration Reference for environment variables setup. Having trouble? See FAQ and Troubleshooting.

Upgrading from an older release? See Upgrading to v2.0.0 for the platform-by-platform path from v1.6.1.

Security defaults are intentionally local-first: loopback access works out of the box, ordinary LAN and public clients require Basic Auth unless you explicitly opt back in, and Tailscale (100.64.0.0/10) plus Docker bridge (172.16.0.0/12) traffic are trusted by default for easier private installs. Set BYPASS_AUTH_TAILSCALE=false or BYPASS_AUTH_DOCKER=false if you want those clients to authenticate too. ALLOW_UNAUTHENTICATED_PRIVATE_NETWORK=true restores unauthenticated access for other trusted private networks; public clients still require ALLOW_UNAUTHENTICATED_REMOTE=true. Powerful actions such as backups, bulk import, update apply, sidecar install/download/delete, haptics, and custom tool mutation also require ADMIN_SECRET; see Access Control.

Features

Chat & Roleplay

Three chat modes — Conversation (Discord-style DMs), Roleplay (immersive RPG with sprites and backgrounds), and Game (AI Game Master with party, quests, and combat). Characters can share memory across modes. Create or import characters, search the Chub.ai bot browser, organize chats into folders, branch conversations, swipe between alternate responses, and import from SillyTavern.

Visual & Immersive

Character expression sprites with automatic emotion switching, custom scene backgrounds, dynamic weather overlays, two visual themes (Y2K Marinara and SillyTavern classic), and light/dark mode.

AI Agent System

20+ built-in agents that run alongside your chat — world state tracking, quest management, combat, expression detection, background selection, Narrative Director, prose analysis, Music DJ for Spotify/YouTube, CYOA choices, and more. Add only the agents you want to each chat, or create/import custom agents.

Prompt Engineering

Preset system with drag-and-drop prompt ordering, lorebooks with keyword triggers, an AI lorebook maker, world info inspector, regex scripts, and a macro/template system.

Connections & Providers

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Google Vertex AI, OpenRouter, NanoGPT, Mistral, Cohere, Pollinations, Stability AI, Together AI, NovelAI, ComfyUI, SD Web UI, Draw Things (Apple Silicon, Metal + Apple Neural Engine), and custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints. API keys are encrypted at rest with AES-256. Per-chat connection overrides.

Export & Data

Export individual chats or bulk transcript zips as JSONL or plain text. Fully local file-native storage — all data stays on your machine. No account required.

Documentation

Community & Support

• Join our Discord — Chat, get help, share characters, and give feedback
• Support on Ko-fi — Help keep the project alive

Contributors

Made with contrib.rocks.

License

AGPL-3.0