public-tunnel

name	public-tunnel
description	Create temporary public tunnels to expose local application ports for demos or sharing work in progress. Use when the user asks to share a local app, create a public URL for a port, set up a tunnel, or make a local server temporarily accessible from the internet.

Public Tunnel (tunnelmole)

Create temporary public URLs that forward to local application ports using tunnelmole. No account needed, no password — just a clean public URL.

Usage

When a user asks to expose a local port or create a public URL for a running application:

1. Confirm the local port number (must be > 1024 for security)
2. Start a tunnel using npx tunnelmole as a background process
3. Parse the generated *.tunnelmole.net URL from the output
4. Report the public URL back to the user
5. Create a run once scheduled task to stop the tunnel after 15 minutes (unless the user specifies a different duration)

Important Rules

• Port restriction: Only expose ports > 1024. Refuse to tunnel privileged ports (0-1024) to prevent exposing sensitive services.
• Temporary only: Tunnels are short-lived. Default duration is 15 minutes. Always create a scheduled task to stop the tunnel after the specified duration. If the user requests a different duration, use that instead.
• Single tunnel per port: Don't create duplicate tunnels for the same port.
• No password needed: Tunnelmole URLs are directly accessible — no IP/password prompt.

Auto-Close via Scheduled Task

After starting a tunnel, create a scheduled task that will stop it after the configured duration (default: 15 minutes). Use a one-shot scheduled task with the appropriate next_run time. The task prompt should instruct to close the tunnel for the specific port.

Example

User: "Create a tunnel for my app on port 5173"

1. Start the tunnel as a background process
2. Read the output to get the *.tunnelmole.net URL
3. Send the user the URL
4. Schedule a task to close the tunnel in 15 minutes

Response example:

Your app is now publicly accessible at: https://f38fg.tunnelmole.net The tunnel will automatically close in 15 minutes.

Implementation Notes

Run tunnelmole via npx as a detached background process. The URL appears in stdout after a few seconds.

# Start tunnel (run as detached background process)
npx -y tunnelmole <port>

The output contains a line like:

https://f38fg.tunnelmole.net is forwarding to localhost:5173

Parse the https://*.tunnelmole.net URL from the output.

To close the tunnel, kill the tunnelmole process for the corresponding port.