Pulse

Real-time monitoring for Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, and TrueNAS infrastructure.

Live Demo • Pulse Pro • Documentation • Report Bug

Localized getting started: Deutsch • Español

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

Pulse is a modern, unified monitoring workspace for your infrastructure across Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, and TrueNAS. It consolidates metrics, alerts, and AI-powered insights from all your systems into a single, beautiful interface.

Designed for homelabs, sysadmins, internal IT teams, and providers who need a clear monitoring view without the complexity of enterprise monitoring stacks. MSP access is a separate, request-assisted provider path and is not part of ordinary self-hosted setup.

🧭 Unified Navigation

Pulse now groups everything by task instead of data source: - Infrastructure for hosts and nodes - Workloads for VMs, containers, and Kubernetes pods - Storage and Backups as top-level views - PMG now routes into Infrastructure (source filter), and Kubernetes routes into Workloads (K8s filter) - Legacy URLs are no longer routed as compatibility aliases; use canonical v6 routes.

Power-user shortcuts: - g i → Infrastructure, g w → Workloads, ? → shortcuts help - / or Cmd/Ctrl+K → global search

✨ Features

Core Monitoring

• Unified Monitoring: View health and metrics for PVE, PBS, PMG, Docker, Kubernetes, and TrueNAS in one place
• Smart Alerts: Get notified via Discord, Slack, Telegram, Email, and more
• Auto-Discovery: Automatically finds Proxmox nodes on your network
• Metrics History: Persistent storage with configurable retention
• Recovery Central: Unified backup/snapshot/replication timeline across PBS and TrueNAS

AI-Powered

• Chat Assistant (BYOK): Ask questions about your infrastructure in natural language
• Patrol: Background health checks that generate findings on a schedule. Community self-hosted installs can run Patrol with your own AI provider or a local model.
• Alert Analysis (Pro / hosted Cloud): Optional AI analysis when alerts fire
• Cost Tracking: Track usage and costs per provider/model

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.

⚡ 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' '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).

Option 2: Docker

docker run -d \
  --name pulse \
  -p 7655:7655 \
  -v pulse_data:/data \
  --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) and Pulse Patrol documentation.
• 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.
• Docker Monitoring: Setup and management of Docker agents.
• Unified Navigation: Guide to the new task-based navigation.

🌐 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:

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:

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.