StackPilot

A self-hosted Docker Compose manager for power users and homelab enthusiasts — as intuitive as Dockge, as capable as Portainer for Compose workflows.

Status: Phase 1 (Core) complete. Volume/GPU wizards, image-update checks, templates, multi-host agents and backups land in later phases.

What works today (Phase 1)

• File-first stacks — every stack is a plain compose.yaml (+ optional .env) on disk. The DB only stores metadata; nothing is locked in.
• Auth — JWT access/refresh tokens, bcrypt hashing, admin/user roles, and a first-launch setup wizard that creates the initial admin account.
• Stack lifecycle — create, edit, clone, delete, and up / down / start / stop / restart / pull / update via docker compose.
• Live status — running / partial / stopped / error / updating, computed from Docker container labels.
• Real-time logs — streamed over WebSocket, color-coded per service.
• Monaco editor — YAML editing with an .env tab and a docker run → compose converter.
• Dashboard — system resource bar, stack grid with quick actions, and a recent-activity audit feed.
• Auto-discovery — stacks created outside the UI (any folder under the stacks dir containing a compose file) are picked up automatically.
• Dark / light theme.

Architecture

frontend (React + Vite + Tailwind, served by nginx)
    │  proxies /api and /ws
    ▼
backend (FastAPI + docker-py + SQLite)
    │  docker-py + `docker compose` CLI
    ▼
Docker Engine (via /var/run/docker.sock — never exposed to the browser)

Quick start

cd stackpilot
cp .env.example .env
# edit .env and set a strong SECRET_KEY:  openssl rand -base64 48
docker compose up -d --build

Open http://localhost:5009 and complete the first-launch setup wizard to create your admin account.

Configuration

All backend settings are environment variables (see backend/config.py). The most important ones:

Variable	Default	Purpose
SECRET_KEY	(auto, dev only)	JWT signing key — set this in prod
STACKS_DIR	/opt/stacks	Where stack folders live (in-container)
DATA_DIR	/data	SQLite DB + app data
CORS_ORIGINS	localhost	Allowed API origins (comma separated)

The host path for stacks is set via STACKS_HOST_DIR in .env.

Local development

Backend:

cd backend
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
SECRET_KEY=dev STACKS_DIR=../data/stacks DATA_DIR=../data uvicorn main:app --reload --port 5008

Frontend (proxies to the backend on :5008):

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev   # http://localhost:5173

API surface (Phase 1)

POST   /api/auth/setup | login | refresh        GET /api/auth/me | needs-setup
GET    /api/stacks                              POST /api/stacks
GET    /api/stacks/{id}                          PUT /api/stacks/{id}   DELETE /api/stacks/{id}
POST   /api/stacks/{id}/{start|stop|restart|pull|update|down|clone}
GET    /api/stacks/{id}/logs                     GET /api/stacks/{id}/export
POST   /api/stacks/convert                       (docker run → compose)
GET    /api/system/info                          GET /api/audit
WS     /ws/logs/{stack_id}[/{service}]           WS  /ws/events

Security notes

• The Docker socket is only ever touched by the backend process; it is never proxied to the browser.
• Login is rate-limited (10/min/IP).
• Compose files are backed up to *.bak before every overwrite.
• Generated YAML never includes the obsolete version: field and uses Compose v2 (docker compose) syntax.