A while ago my own OpenWrt router simply stopped passing traffic. It all started with routine troubleshooting: checking the cables, rebooting, staring at the web interface — and everything there looked perfectly fine. But what I eventually found made me think more seriously — four separate misconfigurations, each enough to stop traffic on its own, none of them visible on the page where I had set them up. It took a whole afternoon to untangle by hand
This became the reason for creating REGENT — a server that lets an AI read the entire router at once, tell you what is actually broken, and fix it in plain language, without ever touching the command line yourself
What is it?
REGENT is an MCP server that hands an AI controlled root access to an OpenWrt router. You describe what the network should do in ordinary words — "give everyone on the cable and Wi-Fi internet" — and it works out which uci and ubus commands that takes, in which order, and which service has to reload before the change means anything. It handles ordinary OpenWrt configuration across network, Wi-Fi, firewall, packages and services, and goes deepest on the routed client mode scenario — where the router joins an upstream Wi-Fi network and shares that connection onward with the VPN and ad-blocking the upstream cannot provide
How does it work?
REGENT speaks the MCP over stdin and stdout, so the AI client spawns it directly and no network ports are ever opened. It holds a single reused SSH session to the router and turns natural-language intent into ordered uci, ubus and opkg calls. Rather than dumping the raw configuration, its topology tool reads the whole router in one pass and names the specific misconfigurations that leave a router looking healthy while nothing works
Every change is protected on two fronts. A three-level access gate keeps reading always available, while writes need an explicit gate and destructive actions need a separate confirmation on each call. And before any risky change, the configuration is snapshotted and a deferred restore is armed on the router itself — if connectivity is confirmed afterwards the restore is cancelled, and if it is not, the router puts itself back on its own
Example diagnosis:
UPLINK wwan via phy1-sta0, 192.168.1.4/24, gateway 192.168.1.1
SERVES lan 192.168.1.1/24 DHCP OFF
AP HomeNet 2.4 GHz → wwan2
WARNINGS 4
! lan is on the same subnet as the uplink — the default gateway
resolves to this router itself and nothing routes out
! access point HomeNet is attached to 'wwan2', which is not up —
clients will associate and get no address
! dhcp is not serving lan — clients there must be configured by hand
! the uplink sits in zone lan, which does not masquerade — replies
to clients have nowhere to return to
Key Features
Natural-Language Configuration
You say what the network should do, and REGENT works out the exact uci and ubus commands, their order, and the service reload each one needs
Diagnosis, Not a Dump
The topology tool reads the whole configuration in one call and reports what is broken and why it stops traffic, instead of a listing to interpret by hand
Watchdog Rollback
Before a risky change the router is snapshotted and a restore is armed on the device itself, so a change that severs your own connection is undone automatically
Three Levels of Access
Reading always works, changing needs the write gate open, and rebooting, flashing or resetting need the gate plus a separate confirmation on each call
Secrets Stay In
Wi-Fi passwords, VPN keys and subscription links are stripped before anything reaches the model, the command log, or the system log
Routed Client Mode
Composite intents join an upstream Wi-Fi network and share it onward behind NAT, bringing the VPN and ad-blocking the upstream router cannot provide
Roadmap
- apk Support — package handling on OpenWrt 24.10 and newer, where
opkg became apk
- Wider Device Coverage — verification beyond the single TP-Link Archer C59 confirmed so far
- Guest Network — a separate isolated Wi-Fi brought up in one intent
Repository Link
https://github.com/m-o-z-z-i-x/REGENT
