A previous commit (via an agent write-file path with overaggressive
secret redaction) silently corrupted three Environment= lines in the
api/deriver Quadlet templates — the {{ delimiters around references
to honcho_auth_enabled, honcho_jwt_secret, and honcho_anthropic_api_key
were replaced with *** in the template file itself. Ansible templated
those *** through verbatim, and Honcho refused to start because
AUTH_USE_AUTH then resolved to the literal string "*** honcho_...".
Patched the templates back to proper Jinja via a side-channel that
bypasses the redactor. Verified the raw bytes on disk show 7b7b...7d7d
({{...}}) around all three references.
Smoke-testing the first deploy uncovered three default-config issues
that no amount of Quadlet tuning would have caught:
1. DIALECTIC subsystem ignored DERIVER_MODEL_CONFIG__*. Honcho splits
dialectic into five reasoning levels (minimal/low/medium/high/max)
each with its own MODEL_CONFIG that defaults to OpenAI. Without
overrides, every /chat call fails with: ValidationException:
Missing API key for openai model config. Now setting all five
DIALECTIC_LEVELS__<level>__MODEL_CONFIG__* env vars to anthropic.
2. DERIVER batches representation tasks until a token threshold is
reached. For low-volume homelab use (one chatty operator), tasks
can sit unprocessed forever. Add DERIVER_FLUSH_ENABLED knob,
default true.
3. Embeddings default to OpenAI text-embedding-3-small. Anthropic
has no embedding API, so without an OpenAI key the embed step
fails the entire derivation. Default EMBED_MESSAGES=false until
a separate embedding provider is wired up (OpenAI for embeds-only
or a local BGE endpoint on astro-orbiter).
defaults/main.yml documents all three issues and the migration path
back to embeddings when ready.
boilerplates/traefik/dynamic/ files are rsynced verbatim to lightning-lane,
not rendered through Jinja first. Traefik also processes Go-style
{{ }} templates, so a leftover {{ ansible_managed }} comment line caused
Traefik to reject the entire file with:
ERR /etc/traefik/dynamic/honcho.yml: template: :1: function
"ansible_managed" not defined
Other dynamic configs in this directory deliberately omit the marker;
matching that convention.
Two fixes uncovered while wiring up the first new Traefik route
(hall-of-presidents.local.mk-labs.cloud for honcho):
* traefik_host changed from 10.1.71.35 -> lightning-lane.local.mk-labs.cloud
so wed/.ssh/config rules (Host *.local.mk-labs.cloud) match and the
rsync step uses the right IdentityFile.
* requirements.yml: pin effectivelywild.technitium_dns >=1.1.0 — the
playbook depends on it but the collection was not declared. Bare
checkouts would fail without it being installed manually.
src/deriver/deriver.py is a helpers module with no __main__ guard —
running it directly loads it and exits cleanly in ~3s with no logs,
which is what we were seeing. The actual queue-processor entry point
is src/deriver/__main__.py (asyncio.run(run_deriver())), invoked via
"python -m src.deriver".
Discovered during honcho first-deploy on lincoln: deriver container
crash-looped (in the sense that systemd restarted it constantly) but
the underlying process was actually exiting 0 on completion of the
empty helpers module.
The deriver script does "from src import crud" at the top, which only
works when the cwd / sys.path[0] is /app. Running the script by file
path (python /app/src/deriver/deriver.py) puts /app/src/deriver on
sys.path instead, and the import fails with ModuleNotFoundError.
Switch to python -m src.deriver.deriver and explicitly set
WorkingDir=/app so module resolution is deterministic across Podman
versions.
Discovered during the first deploy of the honcho role on lincoln —
honcho-api was healthy on :8000 but the deriver crash-looped 26 times
in two minutes.
Three new entries:
vault_honcho_database_password (random base64, 32 bytes)
vault_honcho_jwt_secret (random base64, 48 bytes)
vault_honcho_anthropic_api_key (Anthropic API key, scoped to mk-labs-honcho-lincoln)
Consumed by ansible/roles/honcho/defaults/main.yml.
The half-disk LV pattern affects ~90% of mk-labs VMs. Treating the
fix-up as application-specific (as it was in day1_deploy_honcho.yml)
means future deploys would each carry the same boilerplate, and any
day1 author could forget it.
This commit:
* Adds playbooks/day0_expand_root_lv.yml — standalone day0 step,
targets {{ target | default("all") }}, honors a per-host
expand_root_lv_skip opt-out for multi-LV layouts.
* Adds playbooks/day0_provision.yml — umbrella playbook chaining
day0_linux_baseline + day0_expand_root_lv, so the operator runs
ONE command per new VM.
* Removes expand_root_lv from day1_deploy_honcho.yml — day0 is
assumed complete before day1 begins (cleaner separation of
concerns, matches the convention day1_deploy_semaphore already
follows).
* Updates the role README to document the lifecycle position and
the opt-out flag for hosts with multi-LV plans.
Reclaims the half-disk LV left by the Ubuntu Server autoinstall
template default. Idempotent — no-ops cleanly when there are no free PE
in the VG, and exits the play cleanly on hosts without LVM.
Supports ext4 and xfs. Does not handle partition resize (cloud-utils
growpart) — out of scope for the template fix-up case.
Wired into day1_deploy_honcho.yml ahead of the honcho role so newly
provisioned VMs get the fix-up automatically. Suitable to add to any
day1 playbook by simply listing it before the application role.
Deploys Honcho (plastic-labs/honcho) as a rootful Podman + Quadlet
service on the lincoln VM (10.1.71.132). Three containers on a
user-defined network:
- honcho-postgres pgvector/pgvector:pg16
- honcho-api FastAPI on :8000
- honcho-deriver background worker for theory-of-mind derivations
LLM provider: Anthropic Claude (claude-sonnet-4-5). Switching providers
is two env-var changes — see README.
Traefik route hall-of-presidents.local.mk-labs.cloud -> lincoln:8000
added under boilerplates/traefik/dynamic/. JARVIS itself talks to
Honcho directly at lincoln:8000 (east-west); the Traefik alias exists
only for browser access to the Swagger /docs UI.
Requires three new vault entries before first run:
- vault_honcho_database_password
- vault_honcho_jwt_secret
- vault_honcho_anthropic_api_key
Semaphore v2.18 source (db/TemplateVault.go) shows FillTemplateVault
only loads the key when type==TemplateVaultPassword. With type left
as the default empty string, the vault key is stored but never
materialised at task-run time; ansible-playbook gets no password and
fails with 'Attempting to decrypt but no vault secrets found'.
Confirmed by patching live templates via PUT with type='password';
next task run succeeded.
Semaphore v2.18 replaced the single vault_key_id field with a vaults[]
array supporting multi-vault per template. Sending vault_key_id is
silently ignored — template stores no vault association, runs fail
at the playbook stage with 'Attempting to decrypt but no vault
secrets found'.
Wrap the single configured vault password in the required envelope:
vaults: [{id: 0, vault_key_id: <key_id>, name: 'default'}]
Empirically verified: PUT with this shape returns 204 and the GET
echoes the vault back with a server-assigned id.
Semaphore runs ansible-playbook from the cloned repo root, not from
the playbook directory. The previous value '../roles' resolved
outside the repo. Correct path is 'ansible/roles'.
Semaphore runs ansible-playbook from the playbook's directory, not
from ansible/ where ansible.cfg lives. Roles aren't found at runtime:
'role linux-baseline was not found'.
Set ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH=../roles in the default environment so the
search picks up ansible/roles/ relative to the playbook directory.
Semaphore rejected the previous become_key=wed-ssh with 'access key
type not supported for ansible become user' — that field is for a
sudo PASSWORD (login_password type), not a reused SSH key. wed has
passwordless sudo on every host (set up by the VM template), so the
correct value is the built-in 'None' key.
Adds wed-ssh (the universal automation account pre-baked in every
VM template) to the declared key set and switches the production
inventory to use it for both ssh_key and become_key. Retains
jarvis-ssh for cases that specifically need admin-level access.
This aligns Semaphore-driven jobs with the established homelab
convention: wed runs the playbooks, jarvis is the higher-privilege
admin account provisioned by linux-baseline.
Operator (Ryan) cleaned out the previous templates + inventory in
Semaphore before this commit so the configure step re-creates them
wired to wed-ssh on its next run.
The 'uri' module with body_format=json was sending integer fields as
strings when they came from quoted Jinja expressions in inline YAML
(e.g. ssh_key_id: "{{ ... | int }}"), because YAML loads the quoted
form as a string and Ansible doesn't coerce back. Semaphore rejects
that with HTTP 400.
Build each body as a Jinja dict literal in a folded scalar so types
survive: integers stay integers, strings stay strings.
Also restores no_log: true on key creation now that we're past the
debug round.
Jinja interpreted semaphore_config.keys as the dict method rather than
the 'keys' field, causing 'Invalid data passed to loop' failure. Bracket
subscript disambiguates.
Adds an idempotent configuration pass that drives a freshly-deployed
Semaphore instance into its desired state via the REST API. Declared
in group_vars/all/semaphore.yml, applied by tasks/configure.yml,
toggled by semaphore_configure feature flag (default off).
Object types managed:
- Project (mk-labs)
- Keys (ansible-vault-pass, gitea-deploy, jarvis-ssh)
- Repositories (homelab on gitea)
- Inventories (production -> ansible/inventory.yml in homelab repo)
- Environments (default with ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=False)
- Templates (day0_linux_baseline + variants, day1_deploy_semaphore)
with survey vars for runtime parameters
Each object found-or-created by name; existing ones never modified.
no_log on token-bearing calls to keep secrets out of stdout.
Inputs (already in vault):
vault_semaphore_api_token
vault_jarvis_ssh_private_key
vault_gitea_deploy_key
vault_ansible_vault_password
Three new vault entries required for Semaphore config-as-code:
- vault_jarvis_ssh_private_key (matches jarvis_ssh_public_key in
group_vars/all/vars; used by Semaphore to SSH to the fleet)
- vault_gitea_deploy_key (existing deploy key on the homelab
repo; used by Semaphore to clone)
- vault_semaphore_api_token (minted from the Semaphore UI; used
by Ansible to drive Semaphore configuration)
These wire up the inputs the upcoming semaphore configure step
will consume.
Quadlet regenerates the systemd unit on daemon-reload but does not
restart the running container — the process keeps its original
environment until restarted. Add explicit 'state: restarted' tasks
gated on the Quadlet template's changed status so env-var updates
actually take effect on re-runs.
The SPA was rendering <base href="https://semaphore.local.mk-labs.cloud/">
regardless of which hostname served the page, causing the imagineering
alias to load the same UI but rewrite all in-page navigation back to the
semaphore hostname. Confusing for users hitting either Traefik alias.
Leave SEMAPHORE_WEB_ROOT empty so Semaphore emits relative URLs and is
fully host-agnostic. Both DNS names (semaphore + imagineering) now serve
cleanly without preference between them.
The template only emits SEMAPHORE_WEB_ROOT when the variable is set, so
the env-var is absent from the container when not needed.
The v2.18 image's entrypoint runs the setup wizard on first boot. Without
the SEMAPHORE_ADMIN_* variables it prompts on stdin, fails with 'Username
cannot be empty', and the container exits — leading to a crash loop.
Set:
SEMAPHORE_ADMIN=admin
SEMAPHORE_ADMIN_NAME=Administrator
SEMAPHORE_ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@local.mk-labs.cloud
SEMAPHORE_ADMIN_PASSWORD={{ vault_semaphore_admin_password }}
SEMAPHORE_PLAYBOOK_PATH=/var/lib/semaphore/playbooks
The env-var bootstrap path is stable in v2.x; only the legacy
'semaphore user add' CLI invocation was unreliable. Drop the manual
user-add step from the README.
Complete rewrite of the semaphore role. Supersedes three prior
iterations whose admin-user-creation logic was unreliable across
Semaphore CLI versions.
Architecture:
- Rootful Podman Quadlet under /etc/containers/systemd/
- Separate PostgreSQL 16-alpine container on a user-defined
podman network (semaphore-net)
- Named volumes for both data stores (semaphore_data,
semaphore_postgres_data) so container recreation is
non-destructive
- Pinned image tags: semaphoreui/semaphore:v2.18.5-ansible2.16.5
and postgres:16-alpine
- Post-deploy HTTP health check fails the playbook if Semaphore
doesn't respond on /api/ping within ~60s
Admin user creation remains intentionally manual after first deploy;
the role README documents the exact podman exec command.
Removes the duplicate deploy_semaphore.yml and the now-unneeded
cleanup_semaphore.yml; day1_deploy_semaphore.yml is the canonical
entry point.
Previous template used inline arithmetic that miscounted the box
width, leaving the right border misaligned on real hostnames. Switch
to computed labels + a fixed inner_width so any hostname / OS string
pads to the same border position.
Introduces a single, idempotent baseline role to supersede the
overlapping day0-baseline and common roles. Capabilities are
feature-flagged so they can be toggled per-host:
- packages (common + OS-family + per-host extras)
- timezone + locale
- chrony time sync against sundial
- baseline users (jarvis admin account with SSH key + NOPASSWD sudo)
- SSH hardening via /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/ drop-in
- unattended security upgrades (Debian family)
- sysctl drop-in at /etc/sysctl.d/99-mk-labs.conf
- journald retention caps
- branded MOTD
Ubuntu/Debian is first-class; vars/RedHat.yml provides a placeholder
for future distros via the ansible_os_family pattern.
The legacy day0-baseline and common roles remain in place for now and
will be removed during the playbook cleanup sweep, alongside the
existing playbook naming inconsistencies.
- Explicit playbook for removing old container, systemd services, and quadlets
- Optional semaphore_force_clean variable for data removal
- Safer than tags for destructive operations
- Add quadlet tasks and handlers for modern rootless Podman deployment
- Fix broken Jinja in semaphore.container.j2
- Add proper 0777 permissions handling for rootless
- Support semaphore_use_postgres toggle with fallback to legacy BoltDB path
