Living Document Notice
Published 2026-09-24. The evolving architecture and connected notes for this dispatch live in the Stax Digital Garden.
Starting the Embers Dev Log - What to Expect Here
Building self-hosted software for non-technical family members requires documented design choices. When software runs inside a home rather than a commercial cloud, architectural mistakes cannot be patched silently on a remote server. Every schema migration, background daemon, and network protocol choice directly impacts the household.
This dispatch establishes the editorial and technical standard for the Embers developer log.
The Scope of This Log
Future entries in this series document concrete technical implementations:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ EMBERS DEV LOG FOCUS │
├──────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┤
│ Core Engineering Realities │ Operational Runbooks │
│ - Schema migrations in SQLite│ - Backups and disaster recovery│
│ - Memory-bounded transcoding │ - Network traversal (Tailscale)│
│ - Zero-bearer access models │ - POSIX storage permissions │
└──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┘| Log Category | Primary Subject Matter | Target Technical Depth |
|---|---|---|
| Engine Architecture | Node.js and stream pipelines | Benchmarks and memory profiles |
| Security & Auth | Explicit access gates and PINs | Implementation details and threat models |
| Media Operations | Sharp thumbnailing and FFmpeg cgroups | CLI commands and CPU quotas |
| Client Interface | Progressive Web App and offline sync | Component trees and state hydration |
Ground Rules for This Log
- Concrete Implementations Over Speculation: Every post centers on implemented code, measured performance, or active architectural decisions.
- Failure Modes Published Honestly: When an implementation strategy fails or creates operational debt, the breakdown and replacement approach are detailed openly.
- Inspectable and Durable: We prioritize architectures that remain straightforward to run and maintain across years of operation.
# Verify Embers daemon status and active version
curl -s http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/version | jq .- Directus Target: embers
- Garden Source Reference: MOC - The Digital Necropolis and Cold Decadal Storage, MOC - Bosun PKM Tools
- Garden Source Reference: Dev Log, Embers Architecture