hostcd — overview

hostcd keeps every Linux server aligned with Git: continuous drift detection, self-healing, and safe, previewed rollouts for VMs and bare metal — without Kubernetes and without any inbound connection to the managed hosts.

What it is

An application in hostcd points at a folder in a Git repository and at a set of hosts (by name or by label). The control plane (hostcd-server) renders that folder per host, compares the result to what is actually on the host, and shows any difference as a diff. You then sync (apply), roll back, or prune from a web UI or API. Each host runs a small agent that only dials out over HTTPS, so nothing listens on a managed host.

The technical analogy is "Argo CD for plain hosts", but the job is narrower and concrete: your Linux fleet continuously reconciled against a Git repo, the way Argo CD reconciles a Kubernetes cluster.

hostcd Applications screen listing five applications with their git path, sync status, health, and synced-host count, with a folder tree in the sidebar

Who it is for

Teams that have outgrown running Ansible by hand or on cron, but do not want to adopt Puppet/Rudder, move to NixOS, or pull ordinary servers into Kubernetes just to get GitOps. It targets small-to-medium Linux fleets (Ubuntu/Debian and RHEL/Rocky are the supported families).

How it works

                 git (GitLab / GitHub / Gitea)
                            │  fetch, webhook
                ┌───────────▼───────────┐
                │     hostcd-server     │  UI + API, renders manifests per host,
                │   (one per fleet)     │  sync operations, history, rollback
                └───────────▲───────────┘
          long-poll HTTPS   │   (hosts only dial out, nothing listens on them)
        ┌──────────────┬────┴─────────┬──────────────┐
   hostcd-agent   hostcd-agent   hostcd-agent   hostcd-agent
     web-1          web-2           db-1          stg-web-1

Pull, not push. Agents long-poll the server; the server never connects into a host. No inbound SSH or open agent port is required.
Per-host rendering. A single application folder renders differently per host using host facts (hostname, OS id/version/family) and labels, so one manifest serves a heterogeneous fleet.
Preview before apply. Drift is shown as a diff first; applying is an explicit operation (or automated per app), with full history and one-click rollback.

hostcd Fleet overview with summary tiles for hosts, clusters, applications and cluster-apps, and a "Needs attention" list

Editions

Edition	What you get
Community (free, BSL 1.1)	The full core: git → preview → rollout → audit, pull agent, all system resource kinds, drift/self-heal, backup/restore, upgrade/rollback.
Team (licensed)	Approval gates, outbound notifications (webhooks), audit export, a raised host limit.
Enterprise (licensed)	SSO (SAML/OIDC), SCIM, Postgres-backed HA, Vault Transit secret sealing.

The supported release ships the core only. See concepts for the model, install to set it up, security for the trust model, and operations for day-two tasks.

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