Each machine runs a small Flask agent exposing a uniform HTTP API over Tailscale. The dashboard is just a client of these agents — every machine answers the same questions the same way, whether the service behind it is a systemd unit, a LaunchAgent, or a Docker container.

Endpoints

Unknown services 404; unknown actions 400. The logs action takes an optional line count and returns the service’s recent output.

Service registry

Each agent reads a config.yaml describing its host’s services: an id, a label, and how the service is managed. Platform handlers translate the uniform API onto the native service manager — systemctl on Linux, launchctl on macOS, the Docker API for containers. Adding a service to a machine is one YAML entry; the dashboard picks it up on the next poll.

The public status feed described in status API is an allowlisted projection of what these agents report.