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Reaching one application from another

Applications on the same Home Assistant reach each other over its internal network by hostname, never at localhost. Each one’s hostname is 2dd33fbd- followed by its slug: qBittorrent is http://2dd33fbd-qbittorrent:8080, NZBGet is http://2dd33fbd-nzbget:6789. 2dd33fbd is the hash Home Assistant takes of the repository’s address as it was added, ignoring case. It holds on every install that added the address as given. One added with a trailing slash or .git gets another prefix, and an application from another repository has its own. The Hostname on an application’s Info tab is always the right one. A port only other applications use, such as Byparr’s or FlareSolverr’s, is left closed on your network. Applications reach it either way; open it under the application’s Network settings only if something outside Home Assistant needs it.

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Updates

Home Assistant offers an update when an application’s version moves, and nothing else here changes one.
1

Upstream releases

Renovate watches each upstream project’s releases and opens a pull request moving the pinned version.
2

The bump merges

A patch or a minor merges on its own once the image builds. A major, a minor of a project still below 1.0, and a feature release of Authentik wait for a person to read upstream’s notes.
3

A release is cut

release-please writes the changelog, with upstream’s own notes under Upstream changes, and raises the application’s version.
4

Home Assistant offers it

The image is published at the new version, and Home Assistant shows the update.
An application’s version takes the same step upstream’s did: a patch of Sonarr is a patch of the Sonarr application, a major is a major. A rebuild of the Home Assistant base image cuts a patch of every application on it, which is how its security fixes arrive. A version is published once and never pushed over, so it is the same image on every install, and a broken release is repaired by releasing a new one. The arr applications’ own updaters are switched off deliberately. They would announce a new version and then refuse to install it, so this packaging is the one route in.
Authentik migrates only from its previous feature release, so its releases ship one feature release at a time. Update it when the update is offered rather than letting several pile up.

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Two architectures, one image

Each application publishes a multi-architecture image, ghcr.io/kanso-labs/home-assistant-application- followed by its slug, covering aarch64 and amd64. Tdarr and Seadexerr publish none and are built on your Home Assistant.

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Storage

An application is given write access only where it actually writes. Radarr and Sonarr get /media and /share, because moving and renaming files is their job. Prowlarr manages indexer definitions and gets neither. Every application’s documentation has a Storage table of each path it maps, the access it has and what it holds there. The download clients write under /share, which Radarr and Sonarr see at the same path, so no remote path mapping is needed between them.

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Backups

Most of these keep their settings in SQLite, and some run their own PostgreSQL. Those take cold backups: Home Assistant stops the application for the duration of a backup and starts it again after, because a database copied while it is being written produces a backup that will not restore. An application running its own database is also given two minutes to stop, rather than Home Assistant’s ten seconds, so the database can write its shutdown checkpoint.

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Watchdog

Every application with something to probe carries a health check, and Watchdog on its Info tab acts on it. With Watchdog on, Home Assistant restarts the application when it stops answering, not only when it exits. Watchdog is off by default, so the check restarts nothing until you turn it on. Each application’s documentation says what its check asks.

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Versions below 1.0

An application stays below 1.0.0 until it has run on a real Home Assistant. Its documentation says what it still has to prove, in a bold paragraph under its introduction.