Big tasks. Small models.

MagenticLite is the next generation of Magentic-UI — an agentic application from Microsoft AI Frontiers, redesigned to do more with less. It pairs an on-device-friendly orchestrator model (MagenticBrain) with a specialized browser-use model (Fara) so you can automate real work without depending on frontier-scale compute.

• Built for small models, efficient by design. Strong agentic performance without heavy compute — no frontier-scale models required.
• Works across the browser and your local file system. Web research, form filling, file management — in one workflow.
• Keeps you in the loop and in control. Steer, approve, or take over at any point. MagenticLite stops and checks in before taking critical actions.
• Safe by design. Browser sessions run inside a lightweight VM sandbox (Quicksand) so the agent can't reach the rest of your machine without your say-so.

See it in action

Click any task below to expand and watch MagenticLite handle it end to end.

Quick start

These steps get you running on macOS or Windows (WSL). Need more detail or a different platform? See the Installation Guide.

1. Install MagenticLite

# Create a project directory
mkdir magentic-lite && cd magentic-lite
Create and activate a virtual environment
uv venv --python=3.12 --seed .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
Install the latest 0.2.x release from PyPI
uv pip install "magentic_ui>=0.2.0"

2. Run

magentic-ui --port 8081

Open and follow the in-app onboarding to connect a model endpoint. If you don't have one yet, see the Model Hosting Guide.

Looking for the previous Magentic-UI 0.1 release (optimized to run with frontier models)? It lives on the magentic-ui-0.1 branch.

Documentation

| Doc | What's in it | | ---------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Installation | Supported platforms, macOS / WSL prerequisites, install + run commands | | Build from source | How to run MagenticLite from a clone of this repo (uv sync, pnpm dev, etc.) | | Model hosting guide | End-to-end walkthrough of standing up a model endpoint and connecting MagenticLite to it | | Configuration | Sandbox, agent mode, tool approval, full config.yaml example | | Troubleshooting | Common errors and how to fix them | | Limitations | Tasks and usage patterns MagenticLite doesn't handle well today | | Transparency Note | Intended uses, responsible-use guidance, risks, and mitigations |

License

Microsoft, and any contributors, grant you a license to any code in the repository under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file.

Microsoft, Windows, Microsoft Azure, and/or other Microsoft products and services referenced in the documentation may be either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft in the United States and/or other countries. The licenses for this project do not grant you rights to use any Microsoft names, logos, or trademarks. Microsoft's general trademark guidelines can be found at .

Any use of third-party trademarks or logos are subject to those third-party's policies.

Privacy information can be found at .

Microsoft and any contributors reserve all other rights, whether under their respective copyrights, patents, or trademarks, whether by implication, estoppel, or otherwise.