The mihomo Core Explained: the Heart of Clash Meta

mihomo is a command-line proxy core written in Go. It does all the real work in the Clash ecosystem: parsing subscriptions, maintaining connections, routing by rules, and encrypting traffic. The GUI client you use every day is essentially a remote control for it.

What the core is responsible for

• Loading YAML configuration with nodes and rules
• Opening a local HTTP/SOCKS mixed port or a TUN virtual adapter
• Matching every connection against rules: direct, proxy, or reject
• Carrying data over SS, VMess, Hysteria2 and other protocols

Do regular users need to install it separately

No. Clash Verge Rev, FlClash and CMFA all ship with mihomo built in. You only deploy the bare core on servers, routers or NAS boxes without a GUI.

For power users

Standalone mihomo starts with a simple mihomo -d <dir> pointing at your config directory. Pair it with systemd or Docker for autostart and supervision — see our dedicated guides.