I built a single binary to manage all my homelab servers from Telegram

#go #opensource #docker #mcp

I run 3 servers at home — a Mac Mini, a Raspberry Pi, and a NAS. Managing them used to mean opening 3 SSH sessions, running the same commands on each, and switching between terminal tabs at 2 AM when something breaks.

I got tired of it. So I built homebutler.

The moment that started it all

3 AM. Phone buzzes. Disk alert on my NAS — 91% full.

Old workflow: grab laptop → SSH into NAS → check what's eating disk → restart the problem service → SSH into the other servers to make sure they're fine → go back to sleep 40 minutes later.

I wanted this instead: pick up phone → read the alert → type "what's eating disk?" → type "restart postgres" → sleep. All from one chat window.

What homebutler does

It's a single Go binary (~13MB, zero dependencies) that does two things:

1. CLI for your terminal

$ homebutler status --all

🖥 mac-mini (darwin/arm64)
   CPU: 23% | Memory: 5.2/8.0 GB | Disk: 37%

🖥 raspberry-pi (linux/arm64)
   CPU: 12% | Memory: 1.6/4.0 GB | Disk: 47%

🖥 nas-box (linux/amd64)
   CPU: 8% | Memory: 12.4/32 GB | Disk: 87% ⚠️

One command, all servers. It connects to remote servers over SSH in parallel.

2. MCP server for AI chat

homebutler speaks MCP, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor — anything that supports MCP — can use it as a tool.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "homebutler": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "homebutler@latest"]
    }
  }
}

This is what it looks like in practice:

🚨 Alert: CPU at 92% on nas-box

Me: "What's eating CPU?"

Bot: postgres — 85.2%

Me: "Restart postgres"

Bot: ✅ Done. CPU 92% → 12%

No SSH. No laptop. No dashboard login.

What's inside

System monitoring — CPU, memory, disk, uptime
Docker management — list, restart, stop, view logs
Wake-on-LAN — power on machines from anywhere
Port scanner — see what's listening
Network scan — discover LAN devices
Multi-server SSH — manage all servers from one place
Web dashboard — dark-themed UI, embedded in the binary
Alerts — threshold-based notifications
JSON output — pipe-friendly for scripts and AI

Why a single binary?

I've tried Netdata, Glances, CasaOS. They all need Docker, or a running daemon, or a web server that's always on.

homebutler is different:

Copy one file to your Pi. Done.
No Docker. No Node. No Python. No config server.
Runs when you need it, sleeps when you don't.
Air-gapped install? Just scp the binary.

Multi-server: the part I'm most proud of

# ~/.config/homebutler/config.yaml
servers:
  - name: mac-mini
    local: true
  - name: raspberry-pi
    host: 192.168.1.30
    user: pi
  - name: nas-box
    host: 192.168.1.20
    user: admin

Once configured, every command works across all servers:

homebutler docker list --all    # containers on every server
homebutler alerts --all         # alerts from everywhere
homebutler serve                # web dashboard for all servers

Try it

# Homebrew
brew install Higangssh/tap/homebutler

# npm (for MCP server)
npx -y homebutler@latest

# Go
go install github.com/Higangssh/homebutler@latest