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Environments stop being machines. Until now each box WAS an environment --
"beta" named both a deploy target and a host, "the desktop" named both the
operator's computer and the dev server -- so every path could assume one
environment per host and hardcode /opt/thermograph, /etc/thermograph.env and
ports 8137/8080. That assumption ends here:
vps1 75.119.132.91 Forgejo, Grafana/Loki, the portfolio site, and DEV
(own Postgres, mesh-only on 10.10.0.2:8137)
vps2 169.58.46.181 PROD and BETA as two Swarm stacks sharing one
TimescaleDB instance, plus Centralis, Postfix, backups
desktop AI model hosting + flex Swarm capacity, no environment
Nothing live has moved; the ordered cutover is in
infra/deploy/RUNBOOK-vps1-vps2-cutover.md.
deploy/env-topology.sh is the single source of truth: env -> host, checkout,
branch, deploy mode, stack name, env file, LB ports, DB role/database, service
prefix. THERMOGRAPH_ENV is the input, and on vps2 it is the only thing
distinguishing a beta deploy from a prod one -- deploy.sh refuses to run when it
disagrees with the checkout it was invoked from. The host-wide secrets-env and
deploy-mode markers survive only as a fallback for a single-environment box.
Beta gets its own stack file rather than an overlay (a merge cannot REMOVE the
db service, and beta having no database of its own is the point). Its services
are prefixed beta-*: Swarm registers a service's short name as a DNS alias on
every network it joins, so two stacks both calling a service `web` on the shared
data network would let prod's frontend resolve a beta task. Prod's stack, env
and LB config are untouched.
One Postgres, two databases with two roles: deploy/db/provision-env-db.sh
creates thermograph_beta (NOSUPERUSER, owns only its own database, CONNECT
revoked from PUBLIC) plus a <role>_ro for ad-hoc queries, and refuses to run for
the environment that owns the instance -- doing so would demote prod's bootstrap
superuser.
Fixes that co-residency would otherwise have broken silently:
- CI secrets are keyed by host (VPS1_SSH_*, VPS2_SSH_*). SSH_* meant "beta" and
also "the Forgejo box" because those shared a machine; that conflation is what
once had the prod backup dumping beta.
- The nightly backup dumps BOTH application databases to separate off-box
prefixes, and fails loudly on a missing one instead of skipping it.
- Alloy stopped deriving the `host` label from the node -- on vps2 that would
have filed every beta line as prod, feeding prod's alert rules with beta's
traffic. It is now derived per source, with a new `node` label for the machine,
and beta's log volume is mounted via a vps2-only overlay.
- ops/dbq.sh, ops/iceberg.sh and the secrets seed scripts derived their SSH
target and env-file path from the topology instead of hardcoding beta to
75.119.132.91 -- which is vps1's address now.
- Dev's overlay binds DEV_BIND_ADDR (loopback by default, the mesh address on
vps1) instead of 0.0.0.0: correct for a home LAN box, a public exposure of
unreviewed branches on a VPS.
Terraform's hosts variable is keyed by machine with a nested environments map,
and main.tf flattens (host, environment) pairs so two environments on one box
cannot share a checkout. Caddy's single reference config is split per host.
Docs, onboarding and the runbooks are updated throughout, including the security
rationales that co-residency makes false: separate SSH credentials no longer put
a host boundary between beta and prod, and the boundary that remains is the
database and the filesystem.
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Onboarding — becoming a full contributor to Thermograph
This is the developer onboarding path for the emi/thermograph monorepo: what
the product is, how the code is shaped, how to run it, what will break silently
if you get it wrong, and how a change actually travels from your editor to
thermograph.org.
Scope. This covers working in this repo. Cross-cutting architecture
decision records and operator runbooks live in the separate thermograph-docs
repo (reachable through Centralis's docs_search) — this set links out rather
than duplicating them. Where a fact is owned by a CLAUDE.md, that file stays
the source of truth and this set explains the context around it.
Reading order
| # | Doc | Read it when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Orientation | First. What the product actually claims, the estate, the four non-negotiable rules. |
| 2 | Local setup | Before you touch anything. Toolchain, verified run/test recipes for every service. |
| 3 | Repo map | To find things. Every domain and directory, and which files matter. |
| 4 | Backend deep dive | Before your first backend change. Data pipeline, grading, caching, roles, daemon. |
| 5 | Frontend deep dive | Before your first frontend change. The Go SSR service, static assets, design system. |
| 6 | Cross-service contracts | Before any change that touches both. These break silently and in production. |
| 7 | CI and release | Before you open a PR. Nine workflows, three branches, three environments. |
| 8 | Infra and secrets | Before you touch deploy, compose, or a secret. |
| 9 | Observability | When something is wrong and you need to see it. |
| 10 | Recipes | Task-shaped walkthroughs for the things you'll actually do. |
| 11 | Traps and stale docs | Skim early, re-read often. Which docs in this repo currently lie, and why. |
The short version
Thermograph grades how unusual today's weather is at any point on Earth against ~45 years of that exact location's own history. Percentiles, never thermometer readings.
backend/— Python 3.12 / FastAPI. Owns all climate data, grading, the API, accounts, notifications, plus a Go daemon (backend/daemon/) that owns the Discord gateway and recurring timers. Ships asemi/thermograph/backend.frontend/— Go SSR service (frontend/server/) plus every static asset. No climate data, no database, no compute. Ships asemi/thermograph/frontend. (The Python implementation atfrontend/*.pyis the superseded original — see traps.)infra/— compose and Swarm files, deploy scripts, the SOPS secrets vault, Terraform, ops query tooling.observability/— Loki + Grafana on vps1, an Alloy agent per node.
Branches stage environments: PR → dev (vps1, mesh-only) → main (beta, vps2)
→ release (prod, vps2). The two app domains build and deploy
independently — that independence is the whole reason the split-then-reunify
history exists, and contracts is the list of things that
keep it safe.
Your first day
- Read Orientation and Traps.
- Work through Local setup until
make testis green in bothbackend/andfrontend/server/. - Read Repo map with the tree open beside it.
- Pick something small in the domain you're least afraid of, and follow Recipes end to end — including opening the PR.
Your first week
- Read Contracts properly. Every item on that list has already cost someone a production incident somewhere in this project's history; that's why each one is written down.
- Get Centralis wired up (see Local setup) and ask it
fleet_status,logs_overview,deployed_version. You cannot debug this estate blind, and the boxes are not reachable from a laptop off the WireGuard mesh. - Read the
CLAUDE.mdfor each domain. They are terse, current, and binding.