
Twenty-plus containers and agent-operated ops
This is part 3 of the Agent production system series. Previous: Human approval. Constellation nodes: Docker host, Azure / ADO, Dashboards. Words I use below Homelab — the small, always-on computer setup in my house that runs real services for the household and for agents, not a laptop demo that dies when I close the lid Container — a boxed-up app (and its dependencies) that runs the same way on different machines; if one misbehaves, it fails in a smaller blast radius than “the whole computer” Compose — a config file that says which containers to start, how they connect, and what secrets they get, so you recreate the world from files instead of folklore OrbStack — the Docker runtime I use on the Mac Mini (think “Docker Desktop, but lighter on Apple silicon”) so containers actually run on that host Reverse proxy — one front door for many services; you hit one place instead of a pile of bookmarked :port URLs VPN gateway — a container that holds the download traffic behind a tunnel; if the tunnel drops, that traffic drops with it instead of leaking out the front door Watchtower — a helper that updates container images on a schedule, but only for services I’ve labeled as allowed to drift Agent-operated ops — agents can propose and run routine operations under the same gates as code — not root plus good intentions Those eight words are the toolkit. Now the point. ...