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home-network-k3s/docs/12-command-center-ui.md
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jakman85andClaude Opus 4.8 e8c555cfeb Initial baseline: home platform (k3s + Longhorn) specification repository
Greenfield spec set for a GitOps-driven PaaS+IaaS home platform: vision &
requirements (R-* IDs), architecture, 14 domain specs, 11 ADRs, roadmap
(phases + workstreams), and AI-agent coordination (roles, protocol,
definition-of-done, task board).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-08-15 22:37:56 -05:00

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12 — Command & Control (C2) Center UI

Serves: R-C2-01/02, surfaces R-OBS-, R-GITOPS-.

Purpose

The root home.keithjackson.dev is the operator's front door: a single UI that shows what's running in the cluster, links to every service, and surfaces platform health and safe operational actions (R-C2-01/02).

Composition (assemble, don't reinvent)

The C2 center is a curated composition of best-in-class UIs behind the root domain, not a bespoke app to build from scratch:

  • Homepage (gethomepage.dev) — the landing dashboard at the root: a live catalog of services with links, status pings, and per-service widgets (many of the catalog services have native Homepage widgets: Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, qBittorrent, PiHole, Gitea, etc.). This is the primary R-C2-01 surface.
  • Grafana — embedded platform + per-service dashboards (R-OBS-03) for health at a glance.
  • Headlamp (or a comparable Kubernetes web UI) — a controlled Kubernetes console for viewing workloads/VMs and performing scoped operational actions (restart, scale, inspect) — the R-C2-02 "controlled operational actions where safe" surface.
  • Flux status — GitOps reconciliation state (via Headlamp's Flux view, the Flux UI, or a Homepage widget) so the operator sees drift/errors.
  • Hubble UI (optional) — network flow visualization for isolation troubleshooting.

Each sub-UI is itself an onboarded, TLS-protected, access-controlled service; the root aggregates and links them. ADR-worthy only if a custom portal is later preferred over Homepage.

Data the C2 surfaces (R-C2-02)

  • Service catalog: every running service, its URL, its health, its egress class, its exposure.
  • Platform health: node status, Longhorn capacity/health, Flux reconciliation, cert expiry, backup status, VPN tunnel state — sourced from the observability stack (10).
  • Alerts: current firing alerts (mirrors what email delivers).

Actions (safe, audited)

Operational actions exposed through the C2 must be scoped and audited, never a raw cluster-admin kubeconfig in a browser:

  • Restart/scale a workload, start/stop a KubeVirt VM, trigger a Flux reconcile, acknowledge an alert.
  • Destructive actions (delete, offboard) require explicit confirmation and are logged.
  • Onboarding itself remains a git PR (GitOps), not a C2 button — the C2 may link to the catalog/PR flow but does not bypass GitOps (05).

Access control

  • The C2 root and its sub-UIs are internal exposure by default (LAN-only) unless the operator explicitly makes a component public.
  • Authentication in front of the C2 (and sensitive sub-UIs like Headlamp) — SSO/reverse-proxy auth — is required; the mechanism (e.g. an identity-aware proxy) is pinned during the C2 workstream.
  • Trusted TLS on the root and all sub-UIs (08).

Acceptance gates

  • https://home.keithjackson.dev serves the C2 landing UI over trusted TLS.
  • Every running service appears with a working link and live status.
  • Platform health (nodes, storage, Flux, certs, backups, VPN) is visible without leaving the C2.
  • Safe operational actions work and are access-controlled + audited; destructive actions confirm.

Open questions

  • Auth mechanism for the C2 (identity-aware proxy vs per-app auth) — pin in the C2 workstream.
  • Custom portal vs. Homepage-as-root long term (ADR if we diverge from Homepage).