oikos/README.md

Homelab Wiki — hubris

Living documentation for the hubris Proxmox homelab + Oikos operating system.

For agents running on enrolled clients: start with AGENTS.md, then OIKOS.md.

---

For Agents — Navigation & Entry Points

You are running on a client enrolled in the hubris homelab

1. First: Read AGENTS.md once. It explains who you are, the topology, available tools, conventions, and how to act.
2. Before any mutation: Read OIKOS.md. It defines the operating model, risk classes, approval flow, and the ontology you'll consult.
3. For specific workflows: Load the matching skill from .agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md (e.g., service-health-check).
4. When in doubt: Use MCP tools (search_docs, get_page, explain, get_changelog) — they're cheaper and more reliable than grepping.

Key References for Agents

• What am I? → /opt/homelab-context/hosts/<hostname>.yaml (read on first run)
• Live topology → inventory.yaml + hosts/*.yaml (canonical, always wins)
• Risk & approval → oikos/policy.yaml (enforced, not advisory)
• Runbooks & workflows → .agents/skills/ (risk class + verification checklist included)
• State of Oikos → OIKOS.md build status (scheduled probes, drift detectors, signals, approval engine)

When to Use MCP vs Files vs Shell

Task	Use	Tool
Resolve hostname → address	MCP	get_host(name) or list_services()
Search wiki by content	MCP	search_docs(query)
Read a wiki page	MCP or file	get_page(path) or cat knowledge/wiki/.../...md
Get changelog entries	MCP	get_changelog(page, since?)
Understand a service	MCP	explain(service) — compact context card, cheaper than search+read
Blast-radius query	MCP	get_relations(entity) (ontology walk)
List available secrets	MCP	list_my_secrets() (scoped to your age key)
Browse or grep	File	Raw grep when MCP unreachable, or exploratory browsing

When MCP is unreachable: fall back to grepping the clone at /opt/homelab-context/. The local files are the same; MCP is just an index.

---

Understanding the Operating Model

Before you act, classify your action against oikos/policy.yaml.

The Oikos OODA Loop + Decision Tree

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Observe                                  │
│        (probes, drift detectors, agent signals)             │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────┘
                     │
┌────────────────────▼────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Orient                                   │
│      (ontology, context, state, entity relations)           │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────┘
                     │
┌────────────────────▼────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Decide: Classify against oikos/policy.yaml                │
│                                                              │
│  ├─ read_only                → [unattended, no ledger]      │
│  ├─ reversible_low           → [unattended + ledger entry]  │
│  ├─ config_mutation          → [ESCALATE: operator approval]│
│  └─ destructive              → [ESCALATE + confirmation]    │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────┘
                     │
        ┌────────────┴────────────┐
        │                         │
   ┌────▼─────┐            ┌──────▼──────┐
   │ Auto-act │            │  Escalate   │
   └────┬─────┘            │ (get approval
        │                  │  via homelab │
┌───────▼──────────────────┴──────────┐  │
│            Act                       │  │
│  (homelab CLI, runbooks, skills)    │  │
└────────────────┬─────────────────────┘  │
                 │                        │
            ┌────▼────────────────────────┘
            │
┌───────────▼──────────────────────────────┐
│          Verify                           │
│    (checklist from SKILL.md)              │
└───────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
            │
┌───────────▼──────────────────────────────┐
│          Ledger                           │
│     (mutation record: who/what/risk)      │
└───────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
            │
┌───────────▼──────────────────────────────┐
│        Document                           │
│   (wiki update, same-session rule)        │
└───────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
            │
            └─────────────────┐
                              │
                    ┌─────────▼─────────┐
                    │ Loop back to      │
                    │    Observe        │
                    └───────────────────┘

Risk Classes (enforced, not advisory)

From oikos/policy.yaml:

• read_only — status, logs, docs, inventory queries. Unattended. MCP tools are all read_only.
• reversible_low — restart, cache clear, sync pull. Unattended + ledger entry.
• config_mutation — tracked-config edits (commit+push, never local), deploys, upgrades, DNS/ingress changes. Operator approval required.
• destructive — destroy, format, wipe, rotate, revoke. Approval + typed confirmation phrase.

Decision Flow

1. Decide: Use homelab decide <action> <entity> to classify (risk class × blast radius × confidence).
2. Escalate if needed: homelab approval request (Matrix-delivered to operator; see operations/commands.md).
3. Execute: Use homelab CLI (not ad-hoc SSH) — it enforces policy, logs mutations, and verifies outcomes.
4. Document: Update wiki in the same session (per AGENTS.md §5 and the same-session rule).

The Ontology Graph

Everything that can break, be changed, or hold data has an entity in inventory.yaml + oikos/ontology.yaml. Blast-radius questions ("what breaks if strong goes down?") are graph walks via homelab node <name> relations, not doc archaeology.

See: OIKOS.md (full operating model, OODA loop, primitives, lifecycle gates, build status).

---

Finding & Understanding Information

The narrative documentation is organized in layers:

Layer	What it is	Where	Immutable?	How agents use it
Sources	Raw evidence: incidents, external refs, live state	knowledge/sources/investigations/	Yes	Read to understand root causes; do not rewrite
Wiki	Synthesized current-state: one page per node & per system	knowledge/wiki/{containers,hosts,vms,infrastructure}/	No	This is the reference layer — if wiki disagrees with live state, update it in the same session
Index	Pure listings — every page in scope with one-line summary	index.md / folder README.md	No	Navigation aid; keep it current when wiki restructures
Log	Append-only doc-maintenance record (restructures, ingests, lints)	knowledge/log.md	Yes (append-only)	Read to understand past doc changes; never edit directly

Changelog ≠ Log: Each wiki page ends with a ## Changelog (infrastructure changes to that node, machine-parsed). That's not the Log; the Log records doc operations only.

See: llm-wiki.md (full rules, page structure, immutability contract).

---

Map & Quick Navigation

Agent Entry Points (Start Here)

• You are an agent → AGENTS.md (on deployed clients: /opt/homelab-context/AGENTS.md)
• Operating model & risk policy → OIKOS.md
• Specific workflows → .agents/skills/ (load the matching SKILL.md before acting)
• Operations cheatsheet → .agents/operations/commands.md
• Tools & MCP reference → AGENTS.md §3 — The MCP server

Topology & Infrastructure

Node counts, IPs, and service lists change often — treat inventory.yaml and the index pages below as the source of truth, not this README.

• Proxmox hosts → knowledge/wiki/hosts/index.md
• VMs → knowledge/wiki/vms/index.md
• LXC containers → knowledge/wiki/containers/index.md
• Cross-cutting infrastructure (DNS, ingress, mesh, backups, monitoring, auto-deploy, VPS) → knowledge/wiki/infrastructure/index.md

Knowledge & References

• Glossary — GLOSSARY.md
• Incidents & investigations — knowledge/sources/investigations/index.md (active + archive)
• Plans & design docs — plans/index.md
• Hermes agent (for Hermes-enrolled clients) — HERMES.md

---

Conventions

All pages follow:

• File naming. Foundational docs (entry-points, agent instruction, references) are ALL-CAPS (AGENTS.md, OIKOS.md, GLOSSARY.md); containers use <id>-<name>.md; infrastructure pages use lowercase-with-dashes; plans and incidents use YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md; skills are <name>/SKILL.md. See page-templates.md for the full rules.
• Voice & vocabulary. Concise, technical, sysadmin-to-sysadmin. No marketing prose, no puffers (seamless, robust, leverage, etc.). Full rules in writing-style.md.
• Cross-linking is mandatory. If a page references a node or system, link to it. Treat orphans as a bug.
• Live state wins. When something here disagrees with pct config / docker inspect / running state, fix the wiki and add a changelog entry in the same session.
• Tracked configs. Pages for configs living in git repos (Caddy, Gitea, Artifacto, mule-image) must note the repo. Edits go through commit+push, never local changes. See auto-deploy.
• No secrets. This is a private repo, but still: reference secret paths, never secret values.

For agents: Read caveman.md (terse communication standard). Use templates at page-templates.md when creating pages.

---

Updating the Wiki

When You Change Infrastructure

1. Update the relevant page (config snapshot, ports, mounts, IP address).
2. Add a ### YYYY-MM-DD — title entry to the page's ## Changelog section (reverse chronological order).
3. If the change touches a cross-cutting system (DNS, Caddy, Authentik, mesh), update that page too and link from the changelog.
4. If it's an incident, add a record to knowledge/sources/investigations/.

When You Restructure the Wiki

1. Update the relevant index.md / README.md in that section.
2. Add a single-line entry to knowledge/log.md: ## [YYYY-MM-DD] <operation> | <summary> (e.g., ## [2026-07-06] restructure | split infrastructure/dns into dns.md + dns-advanced.md).

The Same-Session Update Rule

Any meaningful state change made in this session requires a wiki update before the session closes. A change that touches a container page must also update:

• The containers/index.md table (IPs, host, mounts, status)
• The root README.md table (if affected)
• The Caddy page site list (if affects *.hubris.network routing)
• The DNS / ingress infrastructure pages (if affects routing)
• The hosts/hubris.md or hosts/strong.md page (if container count changes)
• The inventory.yaml host entry (source of truth for hosts/*.yaml generation)
• The knowledge/wiki/infrastructure/topology.md (regenerate if needed)

Not updating all linked places is a bug. See page-templates.md — same-session update rule.

---

More Information

• For Hermes agents → HERMES.md (persona, source-of-truth hierarchy, token efficiency)
• For manual workflows → .agents/operations/ (commands cheatsheet, agent enrollment, Hermes guide)
• For skills/runbooks → .agents/skills/ (load the matching SKILL.md before acting; includes risk class + verification)
• MCP tools → AGENTS.md §3 (available tools, when to use MCP vs files)
• Page templates & voice → .agents/shared/ (page-templates.md, writing-style.md, caveman.md, llm-wiki.md)
• Machine-readable substrate → inventory.yaml, oikos/policy.yaml, oikos/ontology.yaml (not part of the wiki; see llm-wiki.md)