Erich Blume
40f220780d
- Fix misleading [[tailscale|Pulumi]] link → [[pulumi]] - Simplify [[ansible|Ansible]] and [[argocd|ArgoCD]] to plain wiki-links - Rename "Tailnet" layer to "Network" to reflect Pulumi's full scope (ACLs + DNS) - Fix apt install → brew install (indri is macOS) - Add [[pulumi]] to Related section - Add last-reviewed frontmatter Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
73 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown
73 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Why GitOps
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modified: 2026-02-13
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last-reviewed: 2026-02-13
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tags:
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- explanation
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- philosophy
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---
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# Why GitOps?
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> **Note:** This article was drafted by AI and reviewed by Erich. I plan to rewrite all explanatory content in my own words - these serve as placeholders to establish the documentation structure.
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BlumeOps uses GitOps principles for managing personal infrastructure. This might seem like overkill for a homelab, but there are good reasons.
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## The Problem with Manual Infrastructure
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Traditional server management involves SSHing into machines and running commands. This works, but creates problems:
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- **Drift**: The actual state diverges from what you think it is
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- **Amnesia**: You forget what you changed and why
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- **Fragility**: One bad command can break things with no easy rollback
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- **Bus factor**: Only you know how it works (even AI assistants struggle without context)
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## Git as the Source of Truth
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GitOps inverts the model: instead of pushing changes to servers, you commit desired state to Git, and automation pulls it into reality.
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**Benefits:**
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- Every change is tracked with commit history
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- Pull requests enable review before deployment
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- Rollback is just `git revert`
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- The repo *is* the documentation
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## Why This Matters for a Homelab
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A personal homelab isn't a production environment, but it shares the same challenges:
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1. **Memory is unreliable** - Six months from now, you won't remember why you configured Caddy that way
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2. **Experimentation is constant** - You try things, break things, want to undo things
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3. **AI assistance needs context** - Claude can help much more effectively when it can read your infrastructure as code
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## The BlumeOps Approach
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BlumeOps uses layered GitOps:
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| Layer | Tool | What it manages |
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|-------|------|-----------------|
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| **Network** | [[pulumi]] | Tailscale ACLs, tags; Gandi DNS |
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| **Host config** | [[ansible]] | Services on [[indri]] |
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| **Kubernetes** | [[argocd]] | Containerized workloads |
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Each layer has its own reconciliation loop:
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- Pulumi applies on `mise run tailnet-up`
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- Ansible applies on `mise run provision-indri`
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- ArgoCD watches Git and syncs manually or automatically
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## Trade-offs
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GitOps isn't free:
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- **Learning curve** - You need to understand Ansible, ArgoCD, Pulumi
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- **Indirection** - Can't just `brew install` something; need to add it to config
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- **Complexity** - More moving parts than a simple server
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But for BlumeOps, the trade-off is worth it. The infrastructure is complex enough that managing it imperatively would be error-prone, and the GitOps approach enables effective AI-assisted operations.
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## Related
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- [[architecture]] - How the pieces fit together
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- [[pulumi]] - Network infrastructure as code
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- [[argocd]] - Kubernetes GitOps
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- [[ansible]] - Host configuration
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