Dashy - Service Dashboard¶

Dashy is the homelab's service dashboard. It is reachable two ways:

• Tailnet (no auth): https://dashy.tailnet.ts.net
• Public (Authentik ForwardAuth): https://dashy.example.com

It provides a visual overview of every service, with live status checks so you can see at a glance whether something is down.

How It Works¶

Config-as-code¶

Dashy's entire configuration - layout, sections, service entries, theme - lives in a single YAML file committed to this repository:

k3s/manifests/dashy/configmap.yaml

The file contains a Kubernetes ConfigMap whose conf.yml key is the raw Dashy configuration. Flux syncs this ConfigMap whenever it changes. The Deployment mounts it read-only at /app/user-data/conf.yml inside the Dashy pod.

GitHub PR merged → Flux syncs ConfigMap → pod restart picks up new config

GitOps update flow¶

1. Edit k3s/manifests/dashy/configmap.yaml
2. Also bump the kubectl.kubernetes.io/restartedAt annotation in k3s/manifests/dashy/deployment.yaml to the current timestamp - this triggers a rolling restart when Flux applies the change
3. Commit both files together and push (or open a PR to main)
4. Flux picks up the changes within ~10 minutes and performs a rolling restart

Dashboard Structure¶

The conf.yml inside the ConfigMap is a standard Dashy configuration file. It has three top-level keys:

Each item in a section is one service tile:

- title: My Service
  description: Short description shown under the title
  url: https://myservice.tailnet.ts.net
  icon: hl-myservice   # Homelab icon (see icon reference below)
  target: newtab       # Open in new tab

Adding a New Service to the Dashboard¶

When you deploy a new service, add a corresponding tile to the Dashy config in the same PR.

1. Open k3s/manifests/dashy/configmap.yaml

Find the right section (or add a new one) under sections:. Add a new item:

- title: My App
  description: What it does
  url: https://myapp.tailnet.ts.net
  icon: hl-myapp
  target: newtab

2. Bump the restart annotation in k3s/manifests/dashy/deployment.yaml

Update the timestamp in the pod template annotations:

annotations:
  kubectl.kubernetes.io/restartedAt: "2026-04-01T12:00:00Z"  # ← set to current time

3. Commit and push both files

Flux will sync the ConfigMap and roll the Dashy pod within ~10 minutes.

Modifying Existing Entries¶

Edit the relevant items entry in k3s/manifests/dashy/configmap.yaml. Bump the restartedAt annotation and push. Changes take effect after Flux reconciles.

Adding a New Section¶

Add a new entry to the sections list:

sections:
  # … existing sections …
  - name: My New Group
    icon: fas fa-puzzle-piece
    items:
      - title: Service One
        description: …
        url: https://…
        icon: hl-…
        target: newtab

Section icons use Font Awesome 6 class names (fas fa-…).

Changing the Theme or Layout¶

The appConfig block controls global appearance:

appConfig:
  theme: colorful          # built-in theme name - see https://dashy.to/docs/theming
  layout: auto             # auto | vertical | horizontal
  iconSize: medium         # small | medium | large
  statusCheck: true        # poll each URL and show up/down indicator
  statusCheckInterval: 300 # seconds between checks (300 = 5 min)

A full list of available themes is at https://dashy.to/docs/theming.

Icon Reference¶

Dashy supports Dashboard Icons via the hl- prefix. For any service that has a Dashboard Icon, use hl-<service-name>. Examples:

If there is no Dashboard Icon for a service, use a Font Awesome icon instead:

icon: fas fa-server

Or a plain URL to any image:

icon: https://example.com/logo.png

Status Checks¶

With appConfig.statusCheck: true, Dashy polls the url of each tile and displays a green/red indicator. If a service is behind authentication (like Authentik ForwardAuth), the health check may return 401 or 302 and incorrectly show as down.

To fix this, override the status check URL with a public health endpoint if the service exposes one:

- title: My App
  url: https://myapp.example.com
  statusCheckUrl: https://myapp.example.com/health
  statusCheckAcceptCodes: "200,401"  # treat 401 as healthy

See the Dashy status check docs for the full list of options.

Manifests Reference¶

See Also¶

• new-service.md - Full guide for deploying a new service, including adding it to this dashboard
• gitops-flux.md - How Flux sync and reconciliation work
• Dashy documentation - Official upstream config reference