Homebutler

Name: Homebutler
Author: Higangssh

by Higangsshversion 1.4.0i★ –iRuns on your computer

Registry nameio.github.Higangssh/homebutler

Install

Overview

Description from the maker (original English)

Tells an agent what changed on a server since it last looked - status, Docker, backups, Proxmox.

PopNx MCP’s three pillars

These three are never merged into one score: opinions, measurements and popularity are different things.

User voiceiNo reviews yetReviews open together with accounts in a later step
Our basic checksi1 of 1 passedChecked from public information; code not scanned yet
UsageiNot measured yet★ –

What you can do with it

We have not written a plain-language summary for this one yet. Below are the facts we read from the registry.

Connection: Runs on your computer
Transport: stdio
Category: Developer tools

Install

Pick the AI app you use, then copy the settings.

Before you install

Basic checks: 1 of 1 passed
Runs on your computer with your user’s permissions (files, network, apps).
The registry lists no key to fill in.

You need

npmNode.js installed (for the npx command)

Which app do you use?

ClaudeClaude CodeCursorVS CodeChatGPT

Pick your app above. We remember it, so next time the button says “Install in …”.

Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → Edit Config, and paste this into claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "homebutler": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "homebutler"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Run this in your terminal

claude mcp add homebutler -- npx -y homebutler

Open in Cursor

Or copy the settings yourself

Paste into .cursor/mcp.json in your project, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "homebutler": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "homebutler"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Your browser asks to open the app, then the app shows the settings and asks you to confirm. Key values are left empty for you to fill in.

Open in VS Code

Or copy the settings yourself

Paste into .vscode/mcp.json in your project

{
  "servers": {
    "homebutler": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "homebutler"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Your browser asks to open the app, then the app shows the settings and asks you to confirm. Key values are left empty for you to fill in.

This one runs on your computer, and ChatGPT can only connect to servers on the internet. Pick another app.

Your choice stays on this device in a cookie; no account needed.

These settings are generated from the maker’s registry entry. If the README says otherwise, follow the README.

What it can do

Runs on your computer; the tool list appears in your AI app after you install it.

Basic checksi

We check information anyone can see; we have not read the code. Checks that do not apply are left out of the count. · Checked Nov 7, 2026

✓ Pass
Maker matches the repo
The registry name was verified with the GitHub account Higangssh, which owns the repo
… Not checked yet
Still maintained
We have not read this repo from GitHub yet
… Not checked yet
Has a licence
We have not read this repo from GitHub yet
– Not applicable
Endpoint responds
This one runs on your computer; there is no internet endpoint
– Not applicable
Sign-in with OAuth
Runs on your computer and uses local settings instead
… Not checked yet
No hidden instructions in tool descriptions
Runs on your computer; we can only read tool lists from internet endpoints

Compared with others in Developer toolsi

More stars than 0% of the other 1396 servers in this category
Published to the registry more recently than 82% of the other 1396 servers in this category
Basic checks equal to or better than 100% of the other 1396 servers in this category

Compared with every active server in this category in the registry. Stars count only when the publisher owns the repo.

Common questions

Is Homebutler safe?

It passed 1 of 1 applicable basic checks. We have not read the code. Before adding a key or token, see what access the server asks for and use a key with only the permissions you need.

What keys or codes does it need?

The registry does not list a required key, though some servers ask you to sign in on first use.

Does it run on my computer or in the cloud?

It runs on your computer. Your AI app starts it when needed, and data does not pass through the maker’s servers (unless it calls an online service itself).

Is it still maintained?

The GitHub repo last changed –, and the latest version (1.4.0) reached the registry 9 days ago.

Which apps can use it?

Apps that support MCP, such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor and VS Code. You also need Node.js on your computer.

What can I use instead?

In the same category: GitHub, Desktop Commander, Cloudflare MCP

Alternatives

Servers in the same category from other makers, sorted by stars.

Reading a card:★ GitHub starsiThree pillars: reviews · checks · usageiUpdated = latest version published to the registryi

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by github

GitHub’s official server lets AI read and manage code, issues and pull requests in your account. Use GitHub’s hosted version or run it locally with Docker.

Computer or cloud★ 34,245MITUpdated 4 days ago

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Desktop Commander

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MCP server for terminal commands, file operations, and process management

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Cloudflare MCP

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Runs in the cloud★ 4,446Apache-2.0Updated 14 months ago

Install

README from the maker

Open the README

Copied from the maker’s repo as written. PopNx MCP has not reviewed or endorsed it. HTML, images and scripts are removed. Links lead off this site.

HomeButler

Only the changes worth mentioning.

A single Go binary that remembers what your server looked like last time, and tells you — or an agent — what moved.

Website · Docs · Releases

That is the whole idea. Most homelab tools show you a graph of right now, and leave "does this matter?" to you. HomeButler remembers what your server looked like last time, decides what is worth saying, and says it — six containers before and six after is not "no change" when one of them is a different container.

Reading a report

homebutler report

homebutler report --keep 7 # retain only the latest 7 snapshots homebutler report --no-save # preview without writing a snapshot

report gives you a concise butler-style summary of your homelab: current health, warnings, notable changes since the previous snapshot, and suggested next commands. On the first run, HomeButler creates a baseline under ~/.homebutler/reports/snapshots/; later runs compare against the latest snapshot. Old snapshots are pruned automatically (--keep 30 by default) so reports do not grow forever.

Section rules, labels, and severities are colour-coded in a terminal. Colour is dropped automatically when output is piped, redirected, or run from cron.

Reading a change

Every change line, like those in the card at the top, is three columns: what kind of change, what it happened to, and what exactly happened. The kind is one of eight words, and it is the same word in --json, so an agent branches on it without reading prose:

Kind	Means	You would see it after
`gone`	it was there last time and is not now	`docker rm`, a service stopping, a port closing
`new`	it was not there last time and is now	starting anything
`replaced`	same name, different thing underneath	`docker compose up -d` — the container is recreated, so the name and the count are unchanged
`image`	same container, different image	pulling a new tag
`state`	same container, running where it was stopped, or the reverse; or a process that keeps restarting	a crash, a crash loop, or bringing something back up
`port`	same port, a different process answering on it	one service taking over another's port
`disk`	a mount moved by more than half a gigabyte	anything that writes
`skipped`	the comparison could not be made	Docker was down when either snapshot was taken

replaced is the one the rest of this exists for. A container recreated under the same name leaves every count identical, which is why a report that compares counts — as this one did before 0.26.0 — answers "no significant changes" while the thing you were running has been swapped out underneath you.

skipped is the second: homebutler says it could not compare rather than reporting nothing changed. An all-clear it cannot stand behind is worse than no answer.

The header names the snapshot being compared against, so "what changed" is never ambiguous about the window it covers.

📖 [What earns a line, and what is deliberately suppressed →](docs/report.md)

See it run

The whole thing in half a minute · watch it full size

Why homebutler?

HomeButler helps you answer the boring but painful questions every homelab eventually creates:

What is running on my server right now?
Which container owns this port?
Why did this service restart at 3 AM?
Is my backup actually restorable?
Can I install this self-hosted app without hand-writing another compose file?
Can I let an AI assistant inspect my server without handing it a full SSH shell?

No daemon required, no database. Run it from a terminal, cron, a web dashboard you start when you want one, or an AI agent.

The design goal is simple: give humans and agents a narrow, structured interface to the server. HomeButler returns readable summaries and JSON instead of asking you to trust a black-box shell session.

Self-hosting is not hard because one docker compose up is hard. It is hard because the maintenance never ends: ports collide, containers restart silently, backups look fine until restore day, and every server becomes a slightly different snowflake.

HomeButler is a small operations toolkit for that messy middle.

Alongside what you already run

Keep Uptime Kuma for *is it up*, Beszel or Netdata for *the graph*, Dozzle for *the logs*. HomeButler answers the question none of them ask: what is different from last time, and does it matter?

No agent on the machines it watches. The binary is put there once with homebutler deploy and runs only when asked, over SSH — no daemon, no open port, nothing listening between runs.
The judgement is a written rule, not a model. What earns a line is in docs/report.md, and the same input gives the same report — no AI required, no account, no paid tier.
It checks that a backup comes back. A backup you have never restored is a folder. backup drill boots the archive as a second copy of the app, on a network and port of its own, and requires it to answer an HTTP health check before calling the archive good — then removes everything it made. A failed drill exits non-zero, so backup drill --all belongs in the same cron entry as backup. docs/backup.md has what it does and what it does not prove.

  🔐 Integrity: ✅ tar valid (8 files)

🚀 Boot: ✅ container started in 0s 🌐 Health: ✅ HTTP 200 on port 60405

✅ DRILL PASSED

Quick Start

# One-line install (auto-detects OS/arch)

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

Or via Homebrew

brew install Higangssh/homebutler/homebutler

Or as a container — the hub that reaches your machines over SSH

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 -v ~/.config/homebutler:/config -v ~/.ssh:/root/.ssh:ro \ ghcr.io/higangssh/homebutler serve --host 0.0.0.0 --token "$(openssl rand -hex 16)"

Interactive setup — add your servers in seconds

homebutler init

Or as a container, reaching your machines over SSH — docs/docker.md: docker run -v ~/.config/homebutler:/config -v ~/.ssh:/root/.ssh:ro ghcr.io/higangssh/homebutler

Use it right away:

homebutler status                    # CPU, memory, disk, uptime

homebutler docker list # running containers homebutler inventory scan # containers + ports + topology homebutler report # butler-style health report + change summary homebutler install uptime-kuma # deploy a self-hosted app homebutler backup drill uptime-kuma # verify a backup actually restores homebutler watch tui # terminal dashboard homebutler serve # web dashboard at http://localhost:8080

Machine-readable output is available everywhere:

homebutler status --json

homebutler inventory scan --json homebutler report --json

What else it does

Install apps — deploy Uptime Kuma, Jellyfin, Pi-hole, Gitea, Portainer, and more with one command
Map your server — see containers, exposed ports, system ports, and service topology
Run a doctor check — diagnose resource pressure, stopped containers, public ports, backup hygiene, notifications, report baseline readiness, and configured Proxmox endpoint reachability
Catch crashes — save logs before/after Docker, systemd, or PM2 restarts and detect flapping loops
Verify backups — boot backups in isolated containers before you trust them
See a Proxmox cluster — nodes, QEMU and LXC guests, storage, task status, and honest dashboard freshness, with power actions that name their target explicitly
Use it anywhere — CLI, JSON, web dashboard, or MCP for AI agents without giving them SSH

🩺 Doctor Check

homebutler doctor

homebutler doctor --strict # non-zero exit if warnings/failures are found homebutler doctor --json # automation / MCP friendly

doctor is a read-only preflight for the problems homelab users usually discover too late: high disk or memory usage, stopped containers, public bind ports, stale or missing backups, missing notifications, whether report has a baseline for change detection, and whether each configured Proxmox endpoint is reachable with the token it has. Every finding names the next command to run, so --strict makes it usable from cron or CI — including a Proxmox host that is unreachable or rebooting.

Every finding carries a category, and --json carries the same word, so a caller filters on it without reading the title:

Category	What it is about
`system`	CPU, memory, disk
`docker`	containers that are stopped or unhealthy
`exposure`	ports listening on every interface
`backup`	backups missing, stale, never drilled, or growing without a retention limit
`report`	whether there is a baseline to compare against
`watch`	targets listed with nothing polling them
`notifications`	channels configured, or never tested
`proxmox`	an endpoint that cannot be reached with the token it has
`config`	the config file itself — permissions, keys homebutler does not know

| incomplete | a collector did not answer, so this dia

Only the beginning is shown; read the rest in the repo

Homebutler

Overview

PopNx MCP’s three pillars

What you can do with it

Install

Before you install

What it can do

Basic checksi

Maker matches the repo

Still maintained

Has a licence

Endpoint responds

Sign-in with OAuth

No hidden instructions in tool descriptions

Compared with others in Developer toolsi

Common questions

Alternatives

GitHub

Desktop Commander

Cloudflare MCP

README from the maker

Reading a report

Reading a change

See it run

Why homebutler?

Alongside what you already run

Quick Start

Or via Homebrew

Or as a container — the hub that reaches your machines over SSH

Interactive setup — add your servers in seconds

What else it does

🩺 Doctor Check