Clark Lab - self hosted PaaS

I’ve been focused on making ClarkLab easier to set up, safer to update, and less annoying to fix when something breaks.

The biggest part of this was improving the update flow. After adding health checks, I worked on making updates more reliable by testing candidate containers before replacing the live API. This means ClarkLab can now check that the new version is actually healthy before switching over, instead of restarting and hoping it works. It should make updates more stble, especially when running it on your own server.

I also spent time improving agent updates. Agents can now be updated using release binaries, and I added more work around prebuilt agent binaries, release patches, and version handling. This should make agent updates cleaner and less dependent on building everything manually on the target machine.

Another big focus was setup. I added an api and Cloudflare setup wizard to make self-hosting easier. The goal is to guide people through the annoying parts like env setup, production configuration, Cloudflare tunnel setup, frontend variables, and install scripts. It is nowhere near perfect and used agentic assistance, but it is a big step toward making it easier to deploy without needing to manually configure every little option across multiple files.

I also improved the node setup flow. There is now a cancel setup button, so if you start setting up a node and mess something up, you are not just stuck with a half-created node. I also patched several small bugs such as the node install command.

For debugging, I updated agent logs to use the journal. This should make logs more useful and easier to understand when something goes wrong on a server. I thought this was important as i want this project to be usable for real infra. This feature is very much so in an early stage as i am nowhere near finished with it.

There were also a bunch of security and maintenance fixes. I patched agent authentication, blocked node modification for users who are not sysadmins, strengthened password reset handling, reduced the chance of sensitive data being exposed through frontend logs, and tightened GitHub repo parsing. I also updated workflow permissions and CI checks so changes are safer.

This devlog is again, not about new frontend features. It is mostly about making this project more stable, easier to deploy, and safer. The main thing I learned from the last ship is that setup still needs to be much easier, so I started moving toward a proper guided setup flow. I very much so want to keep improving that until someone can deploy ClarkLab without having to understand how it works completely first.

I’ve been focused on making ClarkLab easier to use and more fixable if it breaks.

One part of this was improving how the app behaves when connections are unstable. I worked on frontend reconnect behaviour and node reconnection so online nodes can be reconnected at any time instead of requiring it to be not responding first. I also fixed issues around agent/API update handling, as there were issues when using the update tool.

I introduced health checks in this log as well. Services can now be configured for health monitoring, and the frontend displays health status in the service detail page so it’s easier to see what’s working and what needs attention without investigation.

Chore wise, I updated CI checks so changes are safer and easier to maintain.

On the UI side, I made a number of usability improvements when deploying it for youself: site URL editing on the frontend, cleanup toward a more minimal interface, masking node IPs behind a reveal action for privacy, and fixes for issues like the API banner behaviour, node install flow, and port allocation notices.

Based on feedback from the last ship, It’s clear that I need to make it easier to setup. I’m planning on making a CLI-based setup flow with env setup etc there, but, that is not built yet. Overall, this devlog is less about new frontend features and more about making ClarkLab feel more stable and less buggy.

In the last few weeks i have created an in-house and open-source version of coolify. I did this as i wanted a way to run coolify that i found easier and that i preferred UI wise. I am still making it so there is almost certainly issues relating to security but it is currently functional.