SangheeSon

Posted on Mar 29

My friend unplugged my Raspberry Pi — so I built a homelab manager

#go #selfhosted #docker #opensource

It started with an accident.
My friend was at my place, tripped over a cable,
and unplugged my Raspberry Pi. The SD card got
corrupted. Network partition gone. Files — gone.
I had to re-flash everything from scratch.
No backup. No remote monitoring. No alerts.
I didn't even know it was down until I tried
to SSH in the next day.
That's when I decided: never again.

The Problem

If you run a homelab, you probably know the drill:

SSH into each server manually
Run docker ps to check containers
Forgot which port Uptime Kuma is on
No idea if your disk is 90% full
Deploying a new app means writing YAML by hand

I had 2 servers (Mac Mini + Raspberry Pi 5).
Managing them was death by a thousand SSH sessions.

What I Built

homebutler
— a single 15MB Go binary that manages
your entire homelab.

# Check all servers at once
homebutler status --all
# Install an app in 30 seconds
homebutler install uptime-kuma
# Container resource usage
homebutler docker stats
# Wake a sleeping machine
homebutler wake nas

No Docker required to run it. No database.
No config files to write (there's an init wizard).
Just download and go.

One-Command App Install

This is the feature I'm most proud of.
Instead of writing docker-compose files:

homebutler install jellyfin --media /mnt/movies

That's it. It:

Checks if Docker is running
Checks if the port is available
Generates docker-compose.yml
Pulls the image and starts the container
Verifies it's running

Currently supports 6 apps: uptime-kuma,
vaultwarden, filebrowser, it-tools, gitea,
and jellyfin.

Built-in AI Integration

homebutler includes a built-in MCP server
with 15 tools. Connect it to Claude, ChatGPT,
or Cursor, and you can manage your homelab
from chat:

"Install uptime-kuma on the raspberry pi"
"What's the CPU usage on all servers?"
"Restart the nginx container"

The AI part is completely optional.
homebutler works perfectly as a standalone CLI.

The Tech

Go — single binary, cross-compiled for Linux/macOS (ARM + x86)
cobra — CLI framework with auto-generated help and shell completion
go:embed — web dashboard baked into the binary
Bubble Tea — terminal TUI dashboard
No frameworks for HTTP — just net/http

The whole thing is 15MB. Zero runtime dependencies.

What's Next

More installable apps (targeting 15+)
Scheduled backups with one-command restore
Server down notifications (Telegram/Discord)
Reverse proxy auto-configuration

Try It

brew install Higangssh/homebutler/homebutler
# or
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Higangssh/homebutler/main/install.sh | sh

Then:

homebutler init    # setup wizard
homebutler status  # see your server

GitHub: https://github.com/Higangssh/homebutler

Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFoDiYRH_nE

What's your homelab stack?
I'd love to know what apps you'd want homebutler to support next.

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