What Is This Thing?
IATAN is a self-hosted AI platform written in Go. You give it a site description. It builds the whole thing. Then it monitors it. Then it fixes what it broke. Then it monitors again. It's a very productive cycle.
One binary containing:
- A web server (embedded Caddy, free HTTPS via Let's Encrypt)
- A database (pure Go SQLite, per-site, no database server needed)
- An admin panel (no build step, because we're not animals)
- A reverse proxy for multi-site hosting
- And a brain that does the actual work while you take credit
No Docker. No npm. No nginx config files. No 47-step deployment guide. You download the binary for your platform, you run it. That's the tutorial.
The Brain Has a Plan (Literally)
Every site goes through a deterministic pipeline. Not a "let's see what the LLM feels like doing today" loop. An actual structured process:
PLAN → DESIGN → DATA LAYER → BUILD PAGES → REVIEW → MONITORING
PLAN reads your description, outputs a structured blueprint. If your description is "make me a website" with zero context, it'll actually ask you questions first instead of hallucinating a website about artisanal cheese (unless that's what you wanted, in which case, fair).
DESIGN creates the CSS, layout, and SPA router. DATA LAYER sets up SQLite tables, schemas, and API endpoints. But only if your site needs data (it's smart enough to skip this for a landing page). BUILD PAGES makes one focused LLM call per page, with the actual CSS injected into every prompt so the AI uses real classes instead of inventing class="vibes".
REVIEW runs Go-based validation first, broken links, missing pages, CSS class drift, JavaScript brace mismatches. All checked without burning a single token. LLM only gets called if there are actual issues to fix.
Then MONITORING kicks in. Adaptive health checks. If everything's fine for a while, it backs off. If something breaks, it wakes up and fixes it. It's like having a very attentive intern who never sleeps and doesn't need coffee.
Updates? Incremental. Only the affected pages get rebuilt. No full teardown-and-pray.
Things It Can Actually Do
Unified tools the AI uses to build your site:
- Create and version pages/assets (with rollback)
- Manage files and assets
- Create tables with auto-hashed passwords and encrypted columns
- Spin up REST API endpoints with JWT auth
- Set up webhooks (incoming and outgoing)
- Schedule cron tasks
- Store encrypted secrets (AES-256-GCM)
- Keep analytics
- Asks you for approval before doing anything destructive
Streaming chat : talk to the brain in real time. Watch it think, see tool calls happening, give it directions mid-build. The entire build process is observable.
Multi-site : run as many sites as you want from one instance. Each gets its own database, its own brainloop, its own existential crisis.
Free HTTPS : Caddy is embedded in the binary. Point your DNS, restart. SSL certificate appears. No certbot. No renewal cron. It just works.
Quick Start
# Linux / macOS
chmod +x ./iatan && ./iatan
# Windows
.\iatan.exe
Open localhost:5001. The setup wizard takes about 2 minutes. Your first site is served at localhost:5000.
That's it. That's the quick start.
50% human, 50% AI, 100% chaos.
See It Live
IATAN builds and maintains its own homepage with a sample app: iamtheadminnow.com
Links
MIT licensed. Feedback, ideas, and bug reports are extremely welcome. Especially the bug reports, because there will be bugs.
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