Uses

I’ve been fascinated by computers for as long as I can remember. I tried building them before my first Lego set and browsed GitHub years before I understood a line of code.

This is the hardware, software, and infrastructure I use now: part setup tour, part living inventory, and part record of how my tools have changed. I favor things I can understand, shape, and keep running myself.

Homelab overview

Access and name resolution

flowchart LR
  devices["My devices<br/>laptop and phone"]
  public["Public visitors"]

  subgraph mesh["Private Headscale mesh"]
    dns["Mesh DNS<br/>names generated from platform"]
    nginx["nginx on each host<br/>sign-in through Kanidm"]
  end

  edge["charon (VPS)<br/>mesh coordinator, public edge,<br/>status checks, alerts"]
  apps["Services on io, titan, europa"]

  devices --> mesh
  dns --> nginx
  nginx --> apps
  public --> edge
  edge -->|the few public names, over the mesh| nginx

Every machine and my personal devices join one Headscale mesh using Tailscale clients. The mesh’s DNS answers service names with records generated from platform’s inventory, so almost everything I run can only be reached on the mesh. A small VPS is the public edge. It forwards the handful of public names home over the mesh without decrypting them, and also serves this site, so the site stays up when home is down.

Infrastructure and data lifecycle

flowchart TB
  me["Workstation<br/>callisto"]
  forge["Forgejo + nixbot CI<br/>io"]

  subgraph builders["Build capacity"]
    lab["phobos / deimos / styx<br/>remote builders, Actions runners"]
    cache["Binary cache<br/>io"]
  end

  subgraph hosts["Every host"]
    comin["comin pulls the reviewed branch<br/>builds and switches itself"]
    otel["OpenTelemetry Collector<br/>metrics, logs, traces"]
    restic["Nightly restic backup<br/>of persisted state"]
  end

  subgraph titan["titan (NAS)"]
    monitor["VictoriaMetrics, Logs, Traces<br/>Grafana, vmalert"]
    repo["restic server<br/>on ZFS tank"]
  end

  b2["Backblaze B2<br/>offsite, from a ZFS snapshot"]
  ntfy["ntfy alerts<br/>charon"]
  gatus["Gatus<br/>outside health checks"]

  me -->|pull request| forge
  forge --> builders
  forge --> comin
  otel --> monitor
  restic --> repo
  repo -->|nightly| b2
  monitor --> ntfy
  gatus --> ntfy

Changes start as pull requests. nixbot builds every host and runs a VM test for each service before anything merges, and then each machine pulls the result and switches itself. The NAS holds storage, monitoring, and backups: every host backs up its persisted state nightly, and the whole ZFS pool goes to Backblaze B2 from one consistent snapshot, with a monthly prune and sampled integrity check. Gatus runs on the VPS, so it still reports an outage even if the NAS is down.

Everything runs NixOS and is described in platform. These diagrams show roles and flows. Addresses, ports, credentials, and security boundaries are left out because they don’t belong on a public page.

Why NixOS and platform?

I want a setup I can rebuild, review, and improve instead of a collection of machines I am afraid to touch. NixOS gives me reproducible hosts. kuhree.com/platform turns that into a shared inventory, service model, deployment workflow, and record of why the system looks the way it does.

Primary workstation

ThinkPad P15v Gen 3 — callisto

	Current setup
Model	Lenovo ThinkPad P15v Gen 3
OS	[[nixos
Desktop	KDE Plasma
CPU	Intel Core i7-12700H, 14 cores / 20 threads
GPU	NVIDIA RTX A2000 4 GB with hybrid graphics; disabled by default for battery life
Memory	32 GB DDR4
Storage	Approximately 1 TB NVMe

This is where I write and operate the homelab. Heavy development runs on europa, the GPU server, and the laptop acts as a thin client to it. Plasma is configured declaratively from platform, like everything else.

Work computer

	Current setup
Model	16-inch MacBook Pro (2024)
CPU	Apple M4
Memory	48 GB
Storage	256 GB

I keep employer-owned equipment as a compact note here; company systems and internal tooling are intentionally outside this inventory.

Desk and peripherals

Category	What I use
Keyboard	Ducky Mecha Mini Creator Edition
Microphone	Blue Yeti
Webcams	Logitech C930e, Logitech C170
Audio	AirPods Pro (2nd generation), Apple EarPods
Displays	32-inch AOC 1080p 120 Hz; two 27-inch Samsung LF27T35 1080p 75 Hz displays

Mobile gear

Category	What I use
Phone	Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max
Cellular	Verizon — approximately $35/month

Making and 3D printing

Elegoo Centauri Carbon — ecc

Specification	Value
Model	Elegoo Centauri Carbon
Build volume	256 × 256 × 256 mm
Motion	CoreXY, fully enclosed
Print speed	Up to 500 mm/s
Acceleration	Up to 20,000 mm/s²
Hot end	Up to 320°C
Bed	Up to 110°C
Slicer	OrcaSlicer

Software workflow

Daily drivers

Job	Tool
Editor	Neovim
Terminal	Konsole and Yakuake
Shell	Zsh + Starship
Browser	Firefox, synced through my own Firefox Sync server
File manager	Dolphin and lf
Notes	Obsidian and Apple Notes
Passwords	Bitwarden
Git	Git, Delta, and lazygit

Neovim over SSH

Neovim is the default editor because it is fast, composable, and equally at home over SSH, which matters when the real work happens on another machine.

Shell and terminal tools

Group	Tools
Navigation	fzf, zoxide, lf
Inspection	bat, eza, fd, ripgrep, jq
Sessions and processes	tmux, bottom
Environments	Nix, direnv, nix-direnv
Containers and VMs	Podman (with a Docker-compatible socket), libvirt
Everyday utilities	curl, rsync, ImageMagick

Development

Category	Tools
Languages and runtimes	Bun, Node.js, Go, Rust and Cargo
Editors and IDEs	Neovim
Coding agents	Claude Code, Pi, herdr for running agents in terminal panes
Personal agents	os, my own persistent agent, and Hermes Agent, both on europa with MCP access to my services
Desktop tools	Obsidian, Bitwarden, LocalSend, OrcaSlicer

The list above reflects the tools configured in platform’s dev environment, not every language or application I have ever tried.

Homelab machines and services

Compute and storage

Hosts are named after the moons of Jupiter and Mars. The VPS is named for the ferryman.

Host	Hardware	What it does
charon	Hetzner VPS	Mesh coordinator, public edge, this website, outside health checks, alerts
io	Ryzen 5 5600X, 32 GB DDR4	Sign-in (Kanidm), Forgejo, CI, the binary cache, Vaultwarden, Home Assistant, and smaller apps
titan	Intel i5-8400, 64 GB DDR4, ZFS and bcachefs pools	Storage, backups, monitoring and alerting, documents, photos, media
europa	Ryzen 5 7600X, 32 GB DDR5, NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB	Local AI models, AI agents, my dev environment, the 3D printer’s MCP server
phobos, deimos, styx	Repurposed small-form-factor systems	Remote Nix builders and Forgejo Actions runners
callisto	ThinkPad P15v Gen 3	Workstation and thin client to europa

Self-hosted highlights

The durable inventory lives in platform. This public page keeps only the stable shape so normal service changes do not turn it into a stale second inventory.

Area	Highlights
Identity and security	Kanidm, Vaultwarden, Headscale
Documents and photos	Paperless-ngx, Immich with machine learning on the GPU
Development and CI	Forgejo, nixbot, Forgejo Actions, Harmonia binary cache, Renovate, Wakapi, IT-Tools
AI and agents	llama-swap (chat, image, video, speech), InvokeAI, os, Hermes Agent, Executor
Home and search	Home Assistant, SearXNG, Firefox Sync
Observability	OpenTelemetry Collector, VictoriaMetrics, VictoriaLogs, VictoriaTraces, Grafana, Gatus, ntfy, Umami
Media	Jellyfin, RomM, Seerr, and the Arr apps that still earn their place

Self-hosting is less about collecting applications than choosing where my data lives and learning how the pieces behave together. The useful services come first; the infrastructure exists to make them dependable.

Utilities and recurring costs

Costs are approximate snapshots, included because this page is also an inventory for future me.

Utility	Current choice	Approximate cost
Internet	AT&T Fiber, 1 Gbps	$90/month
Cellular	Verizon	$35/month
Electricity	Georgia Power	$0.20/kWh
DNS and domains	Cloudflare	$50/year
Hosting	Primarily the machines and services above	Varies

Past Uses

Good tools change, machines get repurposed, and experiments end. This is the compact history behind the current setup.

Former computers

ThinkPad E15 — unused, no longer charging

Specification	Value
CPU	Intel i5-10210U, 4 cores / 8 threads
GPU	Integrated Intel UHD
Memory	16 GB DDR4
Storage	500 GB NVMe SSD

15-inch Intel MacBook Pro (2019) — unused, broken display

Specification	Value
CPU	Intel i7-9750H, 6 cores / 12 threads
GPU	Integrated Intel UHD 630
Memory	16 GB DDR4
Storage	512 GB SSD

Raspberry Pi 3B+ — former proxy host

Specification	Value
CPU	Broadcom BCM2837B0, 4 cores
Memory	1 GB LPDDR2
Storage	128 GB SD card and 3.5 TB hard drive

Former gear

• Cheapino v2 keyboard
• Truthear Zero IEMs
• iPhone XS, OnePlus 7 Pro, and OnePlus N200

Former software and services

Category	Past uses
Browsers	Helium, Google Chrome, Brave, Thorium, Microsoft Edge, Chromium, Arc, Zen Browser, Firefox Developer Edition, Safari, Orion
Editors and terminals	Zed, VS Code, Brackets, Kitty, Ghostty
Coding agents	OpenCode, Codex, Amp
Desktop environments and window managers	Hyprland with DankMaterialShell, GNOME, COSMIC, XFCE, niri, herbstluftwm, i3, bspwm
Launchers and desktop shells	Vicinae, Walker, Rofi, dmenu, Waybar, Polybar, Mako, SwayNotificationCenter, Dunst
Linux distributions	Ubuntu, Antergos, EndeavourOS, Garuda, Archcraft, Manjaro, Nobara, CentOS, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux
Self-hosted services	CommaFeed, Glance, Gitea, ownCloud, Mailpit, Jellystat, Jellyseerr, PhotoPrism, Miniflux, Paperless-AI, OpenClaw, Rybbit, Beszel
Infrastructure	NetBird and CoreDNS (replaced by Headscale), ZITADEL (replaced by Kanidm), agenix (replaced by sops-nix), Docker Swarm, Grafana Mimir, Loki, Tempo, and Alloy (replaced by OpenTelemetry and the Victoria stack)
Mobile carriers	Visible
Hosting platforms	GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Railway, Fly.io, Google Cloud Run, AWS EC2
Other tools	Bash as the primary shell, Ranger, htop, Docker Engine, 1Password, Homebrew, Raycast, FreeCAD