With more and more security vulnerabilities being reported, I decided I'd better start updating my homelab again. It had been a while since my last round of upgrades.
I used an AI coding agent to help review the setup and work through those upgrades. Seeing it read through configuration, identify what I was running, and connect that information to security advisories made me think differently about keeping the repository public.
Those same files were available to anyone else who wanted to analyze them.
The repository contained configuration for systems I actually run: exact image versions, host addresses, service routes, application manifests, and notes about how the pieces fit together. As AI tools become more capable at finding security issues, I became less comfortable making that much context about my own environment freely available.
I still want someone reading these posts to be able to grab a useful script or import a dashboard. I decided to make the operating repository private and move the reviewed examples linked from the articles into a smaller public repository: homelab-examples.
Configuration Gives Someone a Starting Point
Keeping credentials out of Git is an obvious requirement. My concern also includes configuration that gives someone a head start on finding a weakness.
An exact image tag gives them a version to compare with published advisories. Host addresses and service routes help explain the layout. Configuration can show which services communicate, what is exposed, and which security settings are enabled.
Internal IP addresses describe part of that layout even though they aren't directly reachable from the public internet. A version tag is a clue to investigate, with actual exploitability depending on the running system and the advisory's conditions. Together, those details reduce how much someone has to discover for themselves.
AI makes it easier to work through that information and connect the pieces. The NCSC's assessment of AI and cyber threats describes its role in accelerating reconnaissance and vulnerability discovery. For me, that changes how much operating detail I want to publish.
The review I asked for showed me how useful that context was. I wanted to be more deliberate about who could use it to examine my actual setup.
Someone interested in a Talos virtual IP needs the relevant network patch and an explanation of the endpoint choices. They don't need a copy of my full machine configuration. Someone reading about the pool project needs the pool example, rather than unrelated household automations that happen to live in the same file.
It reminded me of checking what my blog images contain. Publishing something useful also means checking the extra information that comes along with it.
Documenting the Upgrade Process for People and AI
That same detailed configuration is useful when I'm the one maintaining the system. I already use Gitea and Ansible to automate homelab tasks, and AI can help with the work around those scripts: reading upgrade notes, checking dependencies, preparing changes, and running verification.
The more of the process I document, the less has to be rediscovered each time. For an upgrade, I want the instructions to cover:
- The starting version, supported upgrade path, and any required intermediate steps.
- Dependencies and the order services need to be changed.
- Health checks, backups, recovery steps, and limits on what can be rolled back.
- What success looks like afterward, and which failures mean the work should stop for investigation.
With those instructions in the repository, I can ask an agent to work through an upgrade using the documented steps and existing scripts, checking the result at each stage.
Those are the same things I'd want if another person were doing the upgrade, or if I were coming back to it after a few months. The process should look much the same whether a human or an AI agent is following it. AI helps me get through the reading, configuration edits, and repetitive checks faster. A restart, backup, or migration still takes the time it takes.
I also want each upgrade to leave that documentation better than it found it: what changed, what was checked, and anything the next attempt needs to account for. That gives both me and the agent useful context for the next maintenance session.
Keeping the operating repository private lets it hold the real detail that makes this work practical. The public examples can stay focused on explaining a particular technique.
Live Files Make Awkward Tutorial Downloads
Before changing the repository's visibility, I checked the articles that linked to it. Six posts pointed into the operating repository, covering things like Grafana dashboards, Talos configuration, runner authentication, and image-processing scripts.
That check turned up a second problem: some links had already stopped being useful.
The pool setup had been retired, so the current Home Assistant files no longer contained what the article described. An older Gitea authentication workaround referred to a file that had since been removed.
A link to a live configuration file can quietly drift away from the article around it. The file changes because the system needs to change, while the post continues explaining an earlier version.
Giving an example its own home makes that easier to manage. I can label historical code, explain its assumptions, and update it deliberately when the article needs an update.
A Smaller Public Repository
The new repository starts with selected, reviewed files and a fresh history. It includes:
- The image metadata script and Git hook, with their dependencies and expected directory layout.
- Minimal Talos VIP patches, using example addresses and keeping full machine configurations out of the download.
- Pool-only historical examples, with generic entity names and the automation examples disabled by default.
The dashboards, runner authentication example, and Eleventy asset script are there too. The examples document what needs adapting, such as datasource selection, entity names, or the runner version's deployment format.
Starting with a fresh history also means the public repository's history contains the files selected for this purpose.
Making the repository private also meant checking the assumptions my infrastructure made about accessing it. Anything that cloned or fetched it now needed authentication.
Until next time, stay patched, and make the bots do their own homework.