Concepts

sorack models your homelab with a few primitives that mirror how self-hosted infrastructure actually behaves. Understanding them makes the rest of the app obvious.

Two-axis node model

Every node has two independent axes:

• An infra type — host, vm, container, k8s_cluster, k8s_namespace, router, and so on (the type is a free-form string, so you can add your own). This is what the thing is.
• Zero or more software attachments — Proxmox VE, PostgreSQL, Jellyfin, … — what runs on it.

Detail fields and monitoring slots merge across both axes. A Proxmox host, for example, surfaces host-level fields from its infra type and PVE-specific fields from its software attachment in the same panel.

Topology + typed edges

The inventory is the graph. You create, rename, reparent and connect nodes directly on the canvas, drawing typed edges between them. Layout is managed automatically by dagre, so cosmetic edits never shuffle the picture — reparent a node or draw an edge and the graph re-flows on its own.

Per-axis monitoring

Each axis carries one probe. You can run a reachability probe on the infra side and a Proxmox API probe on the software side at the same time.

When more than one axis reports, the StatusLine picks a primary aspect to drive the node’s status and exposes a pill row so you can switch between aspects. Nodes without any probe are never touched, so manual status and automatic status never clash — an unmonitored node simply stays unknown.

Note

Status is collector-owned. There’s no manual “set this to green” — if a node isn’t monitored, it reads unknown rather than showing a stale hand-set value.

Maintenance mode

Flag a node (and its subtree) as under maintenance and the collector skips it, so intentional downtime doesn’t read as a failure. The node shows a distinct maintenance treatment instead of an error state.

Runbooks

Runbooks are markdown documents linked to nodes. They render inside the app and include an in-app split-view editor, [[node:…]] / [[runbook:…]] cross-links, optional git sync, and file attachments. See your nodes from a runbook, and jump to a node’s runbooks from its detail panel.