Engineering Index | Laurent Brand

CITA / Start here

Technical documentation

Run the prototype, trace its data, diagnose failures, and reproduce the A3 result.

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CITA / Quickstart

Quickstart

Start a fresh local stack and exercise the real fixture-to-database path without the archived evaluation data.

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CITA / Architecture

Architecture

Trace a response and check the boundaries between collection, database, and dashboard.

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CITA / Feeds and Data Model

Feeds and Data Model

Find the source schedule, choose the right table, and preserve identity and local-time meaning.

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CITA / Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

Inspect health, fetch and parser metadata before changing or discarding data.

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CITA / Reproducing the Evaluation

Reproducing the Evaluation

Choose a public aggregate check, corrected-CSV reproduction, or archived-database workflow.

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Homelab / Overview

The homelab, from migration to operations.

How I moved from a CasaOS laptop to two Proxmox hosts, built the services around them, and investigated failures along the way.

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Homelab / Architecture

Two hosts. Explicit runtime boundaries.

The confirmed deployment separates the main Docker workload from home automation, DNS and monitoring.

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Homelab / Migration

Move the applications. Preserve their state.

The October move from CasaOS on the ASUS to Docker in the HP Debian VM, and the later completed ASUS conversion.

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Homelab / Storage & recovery

Persistent paths, external disks and recovery.

What the mount evidence proves, how the USB/ext4 interruption was handled, and where backup claims stop.

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Homelab / GPU passthrough

UHD 630: host, guest, container.

Separate PCI assignment from driver availability, container permissions and an application’s actual hardware work.

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Homelab / VA-API & Tdarr

A successful encode is stronger than an encoder list.

The measured VA-API test, separate QSV initialization failure, later Tdarr work and storage-contention investigation.

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Homelab / DNS & remote access

Locate the failing boundary before changing DNS.

A successful Sonarr lookup, a validated but unproven daemon setting, and the difference between a tunnel connection and a working route.

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Homelab / Paperless scanning

From the scanner to searchable documents.

A tested scanning and OCR path, with the manual ingestion boundary made explicit.

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Homelab / Linux access point

A 2.4 GHz AP for an IoT device.

The historical Ubuntu/hostapd configuration that connected an ECOVACS device, kept distinct from the ASUS’s later Proxmox role.

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Homelab / Custom software

Tools built around the lab.

Source-backed responsibilities, persistence and checks, with the old Command Center failure separated from the newer implementation.

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Homelab / Operations

Observe first. Change with an explicit recovery plan.

Monitoring semantics, bounded checks, persistence and the difference between recovery evidence and recovery proposals.

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Homelab / Incident records

Failures, investigations and bounded conclusions.

Dated records preserve the symptom, action, observed outcome and what the evidence cannot establish.

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Homelab / Change history

From a CasaOS laptop to two Proxmox hosts.

Milestones are dated by the record that supports them. Confirmation dates are not invented installation dates.

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Homelab / Evidence & conventions

Read the claim at the strength of its evidence.

Dates, labels and source keys make historical work useful without turning an incomplete record into a current installation guide.

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