oikos/knowledge/wiki/infrastructure/homelab-context.md

Homelab context distribution

The cross-client context-and-secrets system that makes every agent (Claude Code, Hermes Agent, future MCP-capable clients) on every machine in the lab self-locating and able to read the same source of truth.

Operational walkthrough for enrolling a new client lives in operations/agent-enrollment.md; this page is the architecture reference.

What's where

Piece	Host	Path	Role
Source of truth	gitea (104)	dtoro/Homelab-Docs.git	Inventory + wiki + service code
Per-client clone	every enrolled client	/opt/homelab-context/	Read by homelab CLI, MCP server, Hermes Agent
homelab CLI	every enrolled client	/usr/local/bin/homelab → /opt/homelab-context/bin/homelab (symlink)	Operator surface for enroll/secret/ssh/pct
Per-client age key	every enrolled client	/etc/age/key.txt (0600 root)	Decrypts SOPS-encrypted secrets the client is a recipient on
MCP server	apps (105)	homelab-mcp.service on port 9810 (https://mcp.hubris.network/mcp)	14 tools: 8 context (get_host, search_docs, …) + 5 read-only management (get_service_status, tail_log, …) + list_my_secrets
Secrets-issuance	apps (105)	secrets-issuance.service on port 9820 (https://secrets.hubris.network/issue)	Generates per-client age keypair on first bootstrap; idempotent; admin-token-gated /revoke
Sync timer	every enrolled client	homelab-context-sync.timer (Linux) / network.hubris.homelab-context-sync.plist (macOS)	git pull --ff-only every 5 min
Encrypted secrets	dtoro/Homelab-Docs	secrets/*.yaml (SOPS+age)	Recipients declared in .sops.yaml
Read-only context PAT	dtoro Gitea user, scope read:repository	given to operators out-of-band	Bootstrap-only — for the initial clone before SOPS works
Write-scoped PAT	secrets/gitea-pat.yaml (SOPS)	homelab refresh-creds swaps it into /etc/homelab-context/git-credentials	All post-bootstrap pushes (client lifecycle, wiki edits)

Data flow

                          dtoro/Homelab-Docs (gitea)
                                │
       ┌────────── push ────────┤ ◀── git push (write PAT or SSH)
       │                        │
       │    ┌────── push  ──────┘
       │    │                   │
       │    │                   ▼ webhook (push event)
       │    │      ┌─── homelab-mcp-deploy   ──── (LXC 105:9811)
       │    │      └─── secrets-issuance-deploy   (LXC 105:9821)
       │    │                   │
       │    │                   ▼
       │    │           git pull → deploy.sh → restart service
       │    │
       │    └── on every client:
       │           timer (5 min) → git pull --ff-only into /opt/homelab-context
       │
       ▼
  homelab CLI / MCP server reads /opt/homelab-context for everything

Why two clones on LXC 105

The MCP server and secrets-issuance each have their own clone (/opt/homelab-mcp, /opt/secrets-issuance) in addition to /opt/homelab-context. Reasons:

• The deploy webhook for each service updates its own clone, runs deploy.sh from there, and re-installs the systemd unit. Mixing this with the client-context clone would create a circular dependency (deploy reinstalls the unit that pulled it).
• The MCP server reads its data from /opt/homelab-context (the same path every client uses) so changes to inventory propagate identically. Code changes live in /opt/homelab-mcp and trigger a service restart.

Mesh / network gates

• Both services bind 0.0.0.0:<port>. The trust boundary is MESH_SUBNETS in the service's environment + nftables (planned). Today MESH_SUBNETS=100.122.0.0/16,100.64.0.0/10,192.168.8.0/24 — Netbird + Tailscale + the homelab LAN. Adjust if the LAN ever has untrusted devices.
• Caddy fronts both with Let's Encrypt certs via the IONOS DNS challenge: mcp.hubris.network → 192.168.8.205:9810, secrets.hubris.network → 192.168.8.205:9820. Off-LAN clients on Netbird reach them via the 192.168.8.0/24 network resource routed through the PVE peer (mesh.md).
• Clients with default-public DNS (workstations not on Netbird, LXCs using router DNS) need a /etc/hosts override pointing mcp.hubris.network and secrets.hubris.network at the caddy LXC (192.168.8.175) — same caveat as every other *.hubris.network service, see dns.md.

Secrets model

• Each enrolled client gets one age private key issued by secrets-issuance on first bootstrap. The key file stays root-only on the client; the public key is committed to inventory.yaml (and becomes a recipient on SOPS-encrypted files via .sops.yaml).
• secrets/*.yaml are SOPS+age. Recipients per file are pinned in .sops.yaml creation_rules by path_regex. Re-encrypting a file is sops updatekeys -y secrets/<name>.yaml.
• The MCP server's list_my_secrets(caller_pubkey) tool returns only secret names a given pubkey can decrypt — the server never sees plaintext. Decryption is local-on-client (homelab secret <name> shells out to sops -d with the client's key).
• The "all-clients" secrets (hello.yaml for the bootstrap decrypt test, gitea-pat.yaml for the write-scoped PAT) are auto-granted to every newly enrolled client by homelab client add --finalize-pubkey (which appends the pubkey to the matching .sops.yaml rule and runs sops updatekeys).
• Removal does not erase past disclosure. Revoking a client via homelab client remove shreds the issuance-side key, denylists the hostname, removes them from the recipient list, and re-keys all shared secrets — but anything they already decrypted to disk is out of your control. Rotate the underlying credential if compromise is suspected.

Why this design

• One source of truth keeps inventory, code, secrets, and docs versioned together. A git log of inventory.yaml is the history of the homelab.
• Per-client age keys scale better than a shared admin secret — removing a client is a real revocation (for new ciphertext), not just removing them from a wiki page.
• MCP layer over the same clone gives MCP-capable agents structured query (find_service, search_docs) without forcing non-MCP tools to go without — anything can still cat the markdown.
• Sync timer rather than push fan-out keeps the failure mode contained: one client's webhook outage doesn't block a push from landing on the others. Sub-5-min staleness is fine for docs and rare enough for secrets that we don't need lower latency.

Related

• Operations: agent enrollment — the step-by-step for adding a new client
• Auto-deploy — the homelab-mcp + secrets-issuance pipelines (and the rest of the lab's webhook pipelines)
• Mesh — Netbird / Tailscale paths and the 192.168.8.0/24 network resource
• Apps (105) — where both services run
• Gitea (104) — the source of truth

Changelog

2026-05-20 — system live across hubris, apps, republic-laptop

Phase 1 of the cross-client context plan merged. Three clients enrolled end-to-end: PAT-based bootstrap, age-key issuance, SOPS decrypt verified on each. Webhook auto-deploy for both LXC 105 services wired (hook ids 10 + 11). homelab refresh-creds + atomic client add --finalize-pubkey grant flow live so new clients are one ceremony instead of four manual steps. Outstanding: bootstrap mac-mini (macOS, exercises launchd) + ludo-mini + the remaining LXCs; Hermes Agent integration so the agent uses inventory at chat-time.