Production parity
Run the same container platforms, GitOps workflows, and observability stack used in client environments.
Guiding principles
The lab mirrors production realities while staying flexible enough for rapid experiments.
Automate by default
Infrastructure is declared in Git and reconciled continuously—manual changes don't last a day.
Delightful resilience
Chaos drills, recovery rehearsals, and observability improvements are part of the routine cadence.
Hardware & layout
Balanced to stay quiet in the office while still handling real-world workloads.
Compute & storage
- Proxmox cluster with low-power nodes for 24/7 services.
- ZFS-backed storage tiers; NVMe for labs, mirrored HDDs for durability.
- Talos-managed Kubernetes layer for workloads and experiments.
Networking
- Core router with policy-based routing for dual WAN.
- VLAN segregation keeps experiments isolated from home traffic.
- Zero-trust remote access using WireGuard and identity-aware proxies.
Services on rotation
A curated mix of long-lived services and temporary sandboxes.
GitOps control plane
FluxCD manages cluster components, sealed secrets, and application releases with progressive delivery toggles.
Grafana, Loki & Tempo
Unified dashboards and alerts mirrored from production patterns for incident simulations.
Internal developer portal
Backstage instance with golden-path templates and scaffolding scripts ready for quick prototyping.
Want to swap homelab ideas?
Always keen to trade notes on self-hosting strategies, resilient networking, and automation hacks.