Pulse

Monitoring for Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, TrueNAS, and vSphere that watches your infrastructure so you don't have to.

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Pulse v6 is out. A rebuilt unified workspace with TrueNAS and vSphere support and a dedicated page for every platform. Upgrading from v5? See the v6 upgrade guide.

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Issue-first contribution policy: please open an issue or discussion before investing time in a code change. External pull requests are not part of the normal contribution flow for this repository. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

🚀 Overview

Dashboards show you what's happening when you look. Most infrastructure problems start while you're not looking: the backup job that has quietly failed three runs in a row, the ZFS pool creeping toward full, the VM stuck in a restart loop. Pulse is built for that gap.

Pulse monitors your Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, TrueNAS, and vSphere estate in one workspace and alerts you the moment something breaks. Beyond alerts, Pulse Patrol does an engineer's rounds on a schedule, finds the problems nobody configured a rule for, and explains what they mean. On Pro, Patrol also investigates issues and applies safe, policy-bound fixes with verification and an audit trail.

Designed for homelabs, sysadmins, internal IT teams, and providers who want serious monitoring without running an enterprise monitoring stack. MSP access is a separate, request-assisted provider path and is not part of ordinary self-hosted setup.

✨ Features

Watching, Not Just Showing

• Pulse Patrol: Scheduled background health checks (every 10 minutes to every 7 days) that catch silent failures: failed backup jobs, pools approaching capacity, restart-looping VMs, clock drift, failing container health checks. Runs on every tier; community installs use your own AI provider or a local model.
• Investigation and Safe Fixes (Pro / hosted Cloud): Alert-triggered root-cause investigation, plus optional remediation under command safety policies with verification and an audit trail
• Chat Assistant (BYOK): Ask questions about your infrastructure in natural language
• Bring Your Own Agent (MCP): Prefer Claude Code, OpenCode, or another MCP client? Pulse ships an MCP server exposing the same governed tools the Assistant uses (inventory, metrics, alerts, storage, action proposals). Setup lives under Settings → Pulse Intelligence → Assistant → External agents
• Cost Tracking: Track usage and costs per provider/model

Core Monitoring

• Unified Monitoring: View health and metrics for PVE, PBS, PMG, Docker, Kubernetes, and TrueNAS in one place
• Smart Alerts: Adaptive, hysteresis-based thresholds that cut flapping noise, delivered via Discord, Slack, Telegram, Email, and more
• Auto-Discovery: Automatically finds Proxmox nodes on your network
• Metrics History: Persistent storage with configurable retention
• Recovery Views: Backup, snapshot, and replication history for each platform (PBS, ZFS/TrueNAS, vSphere)

Multi-Platform

• Proxmox VE/PBS/PMG: Full monitoring and management
• TrueNAS: Pools, datasets, disks, ZFS snapshots, replication tasks, and alerts
• Kubernetes: Complete K8s cluster monitoring via agents
• Docker/Podman: Container and Swarm service monitoring
• OCI Containers: Proxmox 9.1+ native container support

Security & Operations

• Secure by Design: Credentials encrypted at rest, strict API scoping, agent commands disabled by default
• One-Click Updates: Easy upgrades for supported deployments
• OIDC/SSO/SAML: Single sign-on with multi-provider support
• Mobile Remote Access: Relay protocol with end-to-end encryption for supported Pulse Mobile clients (Relay and above)
• Privacy Focused: Outbound usage telemetry is enabled by default and fully documented — the payload uses a rotating pseudonymous install ID and does not include hostnames, credentials, names, email addresses, IP addresses, or infrastructure identifiers. Disable any time in Settings or via PULSE_TELEMETRY=false.

🧭 A Page for Every Platform

Patrol and alerts can only reason across your estate because Pulse sees all of it in one resource model. The UI keeps the platform-shaped views operators already know:

• Proxmox (PVE, PBS, and PMG), Docker, Kubernetes, TrueNAS, vSphere, and standalone machines each get their own page
• Storage and Recovery (backups, snapshots, replication) surface on the platform pages they belong to
• Alerts and Patrol are top-level views across every platform

Power-user shortcuts:

• g p → Proxmox, g d → Docker, g k → Kubernetes, g n → TrueNAS, g v → vSphere, g s → standalone machines
• g a → Alerts, g r → Patrol, g t → Settings
• / → search, Cmd/Ctrl+K → command palette, ? → shortcuts help

⚡ Quick Start

Paid Pulse Pro / Relay / legacy customers: GitHub release assets and the public rcourtman/pulse Docker image are community builds. Activate your license key under Settings → Plans → Existing purchases to unlock Pro features. These community builds do not include the private Pulse Pro runtime hooks (Audit Log, Audit Webhooks, RBAC, governed remediation). For those, use https://pulserelay.pro/download.html with a v6 activation key (starts with ppk_live_) to get the private Pulse Pro Docker image or Linux archive. A v5 or legacy license key is not a ppk_live_ activation key and will not work on that page.

Option 1: Proxmox LXC (Recommended)

Replace vX.Y.Z with the exact release tag you want, verify the signed installer, then run it on your Proxmox host:

export PULSE_VERSION=vX.Y.Z
curl -fsSLO "https://github.com/rcourtman/Pulse/releases/download/${PULSE_VERSION}/install.sh"
curl -fsSLO "https://github.com/rcourtman/Pulse/releases/download/${PULSE_VERSION}/install.sh.sshsig"
ssh-keygen -Y verify \
  -f <(printf '%s\n' 'pulse-installer namespaces="pulse-install" ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIMZd/DaH+BldzOkq1A8KVTcFk73nAyrE8aJOyf7i00jm pulse-installer') \
  -I pulse-installer \
  -n pulse-install \
  -s install.sh.sshsig < install.sh
bash install.sh --version "${PULSE_VERSION}"
rm -f install.sh install.sh.sshsig

Note: this installs the Pulse server. Agent installs and v5-to-v6 agent upgrades use the command generated in Settings → Infrastructure → Install on a host (served from /install.sh on your Pulse server).

Server and agent updates are separate lifecycle paths. Updating the server sets the version eligible v6 agents should reach, but it does not prove the fleet has converged. Current Unified Agents on Linux, Windows, and Docker-enabled hosts check shortly after startup and then hourly, install only a newer semantic version (including RC-to-stable), and retry after offline or failed checks. They bind the binary download to the exact server target so intermediary caches cannot silently return an older agent. v5 agents, PVE host agents, and agents with auto-update disabled or failed authentication, transport, trust, download, or self-test prerequisites need the manual per-host command from Settings → Infrastructure.

Option 2: Docker

docker run -d \
  --name pulse \
  -p 7655:7655 \
  -v pulse_data:/data \
  -e PULSE_DEPLOYMENT_METHOD=docker_run \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  rcourtman/pulse:vX.Y.Z

Open Pulse at http://<your-ip>:7655.

Local Development

Use the managed dev runtime from the repo root:

npm run dev

Open http://127.0.0.1:5173 in the browser. 5173 is the frontend dev shell, and it proxies /api and /ws to the backend on 7655. 7655 is the backend dependency for API and websocket traffic, not the primary browser URL for local frontend development.

The managed dev runtime resets its local login to admin / adminadminadmin on startup unless you override it with HOT_DEV_AUTH_USER and HOT_DEV_AUTH_PASS.

Canonical local dev commands:

• npm run dev — start the managed runtime and reclaim the canonical dev ports if an older unmanaged session is still using them
• npm run dev:lab — start the managed runtime in lab-agent mode, with the frontend/backend exposed on the LAN and Proxmox LXC Docker inventory enabled for installed lab agents
• npm run dev:status — show frontend shell health, proxied API health, direct backend health, and listener ownership
• npm run dev:status:lab — show status using the same LAN-bound lab-agent defaults used by dev:lab
• npm run dev:verify — run the managed browser proof pack against the live dev runtime, including runtime recovery, the Patrol blocked-runtime page contract, and the desktop Recovery layout guard while the launcher suppresses unrelated backend rebuild churn for the duration of the proof pack
• npm run dev:verify:lab — run the managed proof pack after applying lab-agent runtime defaults
• npm run dev:logs — tail the managed runtime log
• npm run dev:backend-restart — bounce only the managed backend through the launcher contract
• npm run dev:stop — stop the managed runtime
• npm run dev:foreground — run the foreground hot-reload launcher intentionally if you need an attached shell
• npm run dev:foreground:lab — run the foreground hot-reload launcher with lab-agent defaults for troubleshooting

If npm run dev:verify passes, the managed dev shell, proxy path, backend health endpoint, browser recovery path, Patrol blocked-runtime page behavior, and Recovery desktop history-table layout are all aligned.

📚 Documentation

• Installation Guide: Detailed instructions for Docker, Kubernetes, and bare metal.
• Upgrade to v6: Migration guide for upgrading from v5 to v6.
• Configuration: Setup authentication, notifications, and advanced settings.
• Security: Learn about Pulse's security model and best practices.
• API Reference: Integrate Pulse with your own tools.
• Architecture: High-level system design and data flow.
• AI Features: Pulse Assistant (Chat), Pulse Patrol, and the Pulse MCP external-agent adapter.
• Multi-Tenant: Enterprise/internal multi-organization setup and configuration.
• Troubleshooting: Solutions to common issues.
• Agent Security: Agent privilege model, Proxmox API-only choices, and checksum/signature verification.
• Code Signing Policy: Build provenance, signing scope, approvals, and Windows publisher trust.
• Docker Monitoring: Setup and management of Docker agents.

🌐 Community Integrations

Community-maintained integrations and addons:

• Home Assistant Addons - Run Pulse Agent and Pulse Server as Home Assistant addons.

💳 Plans (Community / Relay / Pro / Cloud)

Pulse is full-featured for core monitoring in every self-hosted tier. Self-hosted pricing no longer sells more room for monitoring volume; paid value comes from convenience, history, AI operations, and advanced administration. Cloud remains the hosted Pulse path. MSP is request-assisted provider hosting, with one isolated Pulse runtime per client.

Self-hosted tiers:

Plan	Price	Core monitoring	Metric history	Main value
Community	Free	Included	7 days	Full self-hosted monitoring
Relay	$39/yr or $4.99/mo	Included	14 days	Remote web access, mobile app pairing, and push notifications
Pro	$79/yr or $8.99/mo	Included	90 days	Hands-on Patrol modes, issue investigation, verified fixes, and operations tooling

Pulse still counts top-level monitored systems once no matter how they are collected. VMs, containers, pods, disks, backups, and other child resources under that system are included rather than counted separately, but that count is no longer the self-hosted paid gate.

Community keeps Patrol available with your own provider or local model. Relay remains the convenience tier, and Pro is the paid operations tier.

Runtime-aligned capability summary:

Capability	Community	Relay	Pro	Cloud
Pulse Patrol (Background Health Checks)	✅	✅	✅	✅
Remote Access / Mobile / Push	—	✅	✅	✅
Patrol Investigates Issues and Explains the Root Cause	—	—	✅	✅
Patrol Applies Safe Fixes and Verifies the Result	—	—	✅	✅
Centralized Agent Profiles	—	—	✅	✅
Update Alerts (Container/Package Updates)	✅	✅	✅	✅
SSO (OIDC/SAML/Multi-Provider)	✅	✅	✅	✅
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)	—	—	✅	✅
Enterprise Audit Logging	—	—	✅	✅
Advanced Infrastructure Reporting (PDF/CSV)	—	—	✅	✅
Extended Metric History	7 days	14 days	90 days	90 days

Pulse Patrol runs on your schedule (every 10 minutes to every 7 days, default 6 hours) and finds:

• ZFS pools approaching capacity
• Backup jobs that silently failed
• VMs stuck in restart loops
• Clock drift across cluster nodes
• Container health check failures

On self-hosted installs, Pulse Patrol uses the provider you configure from your Pulse server. That can be a commercial API key or a local model endpoint. Chat Assistant follows the same self-managed provider model.

Technical highlights:

• Cross-system context (nodes, VMs, backups, containers, and metrics history)
• LLM analysis with your provider plus alert-triggered root-cause investigations (Pro / hosted Cloud)
• Optional safe remediation execution with command safety policies and audit trail
• Centralized agent profiles for consistent fleet settings

Try the live demo → or learn more at pulserelay.pro

Pulse plan technical details: docs/PULSE_PRO.md

❤️ Support Pulse Development

Pulse is maintained by one person. Sponsorships help cover the costs of the demo server, development tools, and domains. If Pulse saves you time, please consider supporting the project!

📄 License

MIT © Richard Courtman. Use of Pulse Pro is subject to the Terms of Service.