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HomeOps Platform – Operability

How does the system keep operational?

Purpose and Scope

This document describes how the HomeOps Platform is expected to be operated over time. Operability focuses on the practical aspects of keeping the system running, observable, and maintainable once it has been deployed.

The scope of this document is intentionally limited. The platform is self-hosted, operated in a small-scale environment, and maintained by a single individual. As a result, operational practices prioritize clarity, visibility, and proportional effort over high availability or complex automation.

Operational Assumptions

The operability model of the HomeOps Platform is based on a set of explicit assumptions:

  • The platform runs on a self-hosted server with limited hardware resources.
  • Downtime is acceptable when clearly understood and recoverable.
  • There is no dedicated operations team; development and operations responsibilities overlap.
  • Manual intervention is expected and acceptable in many scenarios.
  • Operational complexity should grow only when justified by clear benefits.

These assumptions guide decisions about monitoring, automation, and recovery strategies.

Observability and Visibility

Keeping the platform operational requires sufficient visibility into its behavior. Observability is treated as a supporting capability rather than a goal in itself.

At a minimum, the platform aims to provide:

  • Basic logging for backend services
  • Visibility into startup, shutdown, and failure events
  • Enough information to diagnose common failure modes

Observability is used to understand what the system is doing and why, not to guarantee immediate detection of all incidents. Logs and basic metrics are considered sufficient for the platform’s current scale.

Incident Awareness and Response

Failures and unexpected behavior are treated as normal operational events rather than exceptional situations. The platform emphasizes awareness and understanding over automatic remediation.

When issues occur:

  • Detection may be manual or delayed
  • Investigation may rely on logs and system state inspection
  • Recovery actions may involve restarting services or adjusting configuration

Response actions are expected to be proportional to the impact of the incident. The goal is to restore functionality and learn from the issue, rather than to eliminate all future risk.

Maintenance and Change Management

Routine maintenance is an expected part of operating the platform. This includes updating dependencies, adjusting configuration, and refining deployment practices as the system evolves.

Changes are introduced incrementally and deliberately. Architectural boundaries, interface definitions, and documented decisions are used to limit the impact of changes and reduce unintended side effects.

Where possible, changes are tested or validated in isolation before being applied to running components.

Backup and Recovery Considerations

Data persistence introduces the need for basic backup and recovery planning. While advanced disaster recovery mechanisms are out of scope, the platform acknowledges the importance of being able to recover from data loss or corruption.

Backup strategies are expected to be simple and proportionate, focusing on:

  • Preserving essential configuration and data
  • Supporting manual restoration when needed
  • Avoiding overly complex automation in early stages

The exact implementation of backup and recovery mechanisms is defined at the subproject or infrastructure level.

Relationship to Other Documentation

Operability builds on the assumptions and decisions defined elsewhere in the repository:

  • Architecture (docs/10-architecture.md) defines component boundaries and responsibilities.
  • Interfaces (docs/20-interfaces.md) determine interaction points and failure propagation paths.
  • Security (docs/30-security.md) defines trust boundaries and detection considerations.
  • Deployment (docs/40-deployment.md) describes how components are introduced and updated.
  • Architecture Decision Records (docs/decisions/) capture operationally relevant trade-offs.

Together, these documents provide a coherent view of how the HomeOps Platform is designed, deployed, secured, and operated over time.