blumeops/docs/explanation/why-gitops.md
Erich Blume dc46eb7def Update all docs titles to human-readable (#117)
## Summary
- Updated frontmatter `title:` in all 63 doc cards from slug-case to human-readable (e.g. `borgmatic` → `Borgmatic`, `ai-assistance-guide` → `AI Assistance Guide`)
- Titles now closely match file stems so `[[wiki-links]]` render naturally without alternate anchor text
- Corrected titles that diverged from stems (e.g. `host-inventory` → `Hosts`, `grafana-alloy` → `Alloy`, `argocd-applications` → `Apps`)
- Deleted `title-test-alpha.md` and `title-test-beta.md` test cards and removed their reference index entry

## Deployment and Testing
- [x] `docs-check-links` passes — all wiki-links valid
- [x] `docs-check-index` passes
- [x] `docs-check-filenames` passes
- [ ] Verify titles render correctly on docs site after deploy

Reviewed-on: https://forge.ops.eblu.me/eblume/blumeops/pulls/117
2026-02-07 21:44:57 -08:00

2.7 KiB

title tags
Why GitOps
explanation
philosophy

Why GitOps?

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.

BlumeOps uses GitOps principles for managing personal infrastructure. This might seem like overkill for a homelab, but there are good reasons.

The Problem with Manual Infrastructure

Traditional server management involves SSHing into machines and running commands. This works, but creates problems:

  • Drift: The actual state diverges from what you think it is
  • Amnesia: You forget what you changed and why
  • Fragility: One bad command can break things with no easy rollback
  • Bus factor: Only you know how it works (even AI assistants struggle without context)

Git as the Source of Truth

GitOps inverts the model: instead of pushing changes to servers, you commit desired state to Git, and automation pulls it into reality.

Benefits:

  • Every change is tracked with commit history
  • Pull requests enable review before deployment
  • Rollback is just git revert
  • The repo is the documentation

Why This Matters for a Homelab

A personal homelab isn't a production environment, but it shares the same challenges:

  1. Memory is unreliable - Six months from now, you won't remember why you configured Caddy that way
  2. Experimentation is constant - You try things, break things, want to undo things
  3. AI assistance needs context - Claude can help much more effectively when it can read your infrastructure as code

The BlumeOps Approach

BlumeOps uses layered GitOps:

Layer Tool What it manages
Tailnet [[tailscale Pulumi]]
Host config [[roles Ansible]]
Kubernetes [[argocd ArgoCD]]

Each layer has its own reconciliation loop:

  • Pulumi applies on mise run tailnet-up
  • Ansible applies on mise run provision-indri
  • ArgoCD watches Git and syncs manually or automatically

Trade-offs

GitOps isn't free:

  • Learning curve - You need to understand Ansible, ArgoCD, Pulumi
  • Indirection - Can't just apt install something; need to add it to config
  • Complexity - More moving parts than a simple server

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.