Preloop
Tied for most recommended of 3 MCP proxies
Open-source control plane that sits between AI agents and the tools they touch, and runs GitHub Actions locally in microvms. Critics note it is still beta.
Open-source control plane that sits between AI agents and the tools they touch, and runs GitHub Actions locally in microvms. Critics note it is still beta.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Runs unmodified GitHub Actions locally
“a way to run your unmodified Github Actions locally or self-hosted in isolated cross-platform microvms”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)” “Preloop uses the exact same protocol the official runner does and runs each job in microvms.”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)” “It could be used for faster local dev loops and porting GHA to other servers.”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)” - Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub”
Follows official runner protocol closely
“our (almost) drop-in rust equivalent which is a 10x smaller binary and has far lower idle rss”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)” “Preloop uses the exact same protocol the official runner does and runs each job in microvms.”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)” “we follow the official runner protocol 100% so we should hopefully have more workflow-compat”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub” - Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub”
Pauses and governs agent workflows
“We handle the state management of pausing that headless workflow so you don't have to build custom polling logic into every bot.”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Preloop – An MCP proxy for human-in-the-loop tool approvals” “It grew into the thing I now use every day: a control plane that sits between my agents and everything they touch”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Preloop: Open-source control plane for AI agents. See, govern, cut cost”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Still beta, not production ready
“It's still beta, so I certainly wouldnt use it in prod just yet”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Degraded availability for GitHub Actions, GitHub Pages and Webhooks” Website hard to read
“I appreciate how cool the website looks but its not very readable friendly”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)”
Other MCP proxies people recommend
The two most recommended other MCP proxies, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PreloopThis page | 6 | 1 | 86% | 4 | — | — |
| MCPorter | 6 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Aident Loadout | 5 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's still beta, so I certainly wouldnt use it in prod just yet”
“I tried this because I started hitting the GitHub actions limit for my private registries”
“love seeing preloop's work”
“it looks like 100% slopware.”
“we follow the official runner protocol 100% so we should hopefully have more workflow-compat”
“We implement the official runner protocol 100% unlike act/gitea/forgejo”
“the local part works well”
“our (almost) drop-in rust equivalent which is a 10x smaller binary and has far lower idle rss”
“I appreciate how cool the website looks but its not very readable friendly”
“Preloop uses the exact same protocol the official runner does and runs each job in microvms.”
“It could be used for faster local dev loops and porting GHA to other servers.”
“a way to run your unmodified Github Actions locally or self-hosted in isolated cross-platform microvms”
“It grew into the thing I now use every day: a control plane that sits between my agents and everything they touch”
“We handle the state management of pausing that headless workflow so you don't have to build custom polling logic into every bot.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.