My friend unplugged my Raspberry Pi — so I built a homelab manager

It started with an accident.

My friend was at my place, tripped over a cable,

and unplugged my Raspberry Pi. The SD card got

corrupted. Network partition gone. Files — gone.

I had to re-flash everything from scratch.

No backup. No remote monitoring. No alerts.

I didn't even know it was down until I tried

to SSH in the next day.

That's when I decided: never again.

The Problem

If you run a homelab, you probably know the drill:

• SSH into each server manually


• Run docker ps to check containers


• Forgot which port Uptime Kuma is on


• No idea if your disk is 90% full


• Deploying a new app means writing YAML by hand

I had 2 servers (Mac Mini + Raspberry Pi 5).

Managing them was death by a thousand SSH sessions.

What I Built

homebutler

— a single 15MB Go binary that manages

your entire homelab.

# Check all servers at once

homebutler status --all

# Install an app in 30 seconds

homebutler install uptime-kuma

# Container resource usage

homebutler docker stats

# Wake a sleeping machine

homebutler wake nas

No Docker required to run it. No database.

No config files to write (there's an init wizard).

Just download and go.

One-Command App Install

This is the feature I'm most proud of.

Instead of writing docker-compose files:

homebutler install jellyfin --media /mnt/movies

That's it. It:

1. Checks if Docker is running


2. Checks if the port is available


3. Generates docker-compose.yml


4. Pulls the image and starts the container


5. Verifies it's running

Currently supports 6 apps: uptime-kuma,

vaultwarden, filebrowser, it-tools, gitea,

and jellyfin.

Built-in AI Integration

homebutler includes a built-in MCP server

with 15 tools. Connect it to Claude, ChatGPT,

or Cursor, and you can manage your homelab

from chat:

• "Install uptime-kuma on the raspberry pi"


• "What's the CPU usage on all servers?"


• "Restart the nginx container"

The AI part is completely optional.

homebutler works perfectly as a standalone CLI.

The Tech

• Go — single binary, cross-compiled for Linux/macOS (ARM + x86)


• cobra — CLI framework with auto-generated help and shell completion


• go:embed — web dashboard baked into the binary


• Bubble Tea — terminal TUI dashboard


• No frameworks for HTTP — just net/http

The whole thing is 15MB. Zero runtime dependencies.

What's Next

• More installable apps (targeting 15+)


• Scheduled backups with one-command restore


• Server down notifications (Telegram/Discord)


• Reverse proxy auto-configuration

Try It

brew install Higangssh/homebutler/homebutler

# or

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Higangssh/homebutler/main/install.sh | sh

Then:

homebutler init    # setup wizard

homebutler status  # see your server

GitHub: https://github.com/Higangssh/homebutler


Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFoDiYRH_nE

What's your homelab stack?

I'd love to know what apps you'd want homebutler to support next.