| name | scan-services |
| description | Discover new self-hosted services to add to server-compose. Scans curated sources (awesome-selfhosted, optionally r/selfhosted) for candidates, filters against what's already tracked, and optionally scaffolds a new service entry (directory + docker-compose.yml + services.yaml row). Use when the user asks to "find new services", "scan for new apps", "suggest self-hosted tools", "what should I add to server-compose", or runs /scan-services. |
scan-services
Discover self-hosted services worth adding to this repo. Curation is the job — Claude picks a small shortlist that fits the user's existing taste; the shell helper does the mechanical work.
Inputs
Accept optional argument hints from the user:
- Category focus — e.g. "networking", "monitoring", "finance". Bias the scan toward that category.
- Source — default is awesome-selfhosted; user may ask to scan r/selfhosted or GitHub trending.
- Count — how many candidates to surface (default: 5).
If the user gives no hints, scan broadly and return a balanced shortlist across categories they already use.
Workflow
1. Enumerate what's already tracked
./scan-services.sh list
./scan-services.sh categories
Read these into memory so you can filter candidates and understand the user's taste (what kinds of services they pick, what categories dominate).
2. Fetch candidate sources
Use WebFetch. Default source:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted/master/README.md
Optional secondary sources (use only if the user asks or the primary yields nothing useful):
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/top.json?t=month&limit=50 — top posts from the last month (look for "I made X" / "X just released" patterns).https://github.com/trending?since=weekly&spoken_language_code=en — weekly trending repos; filter for self-hostable patterns (dockerfile, compose in README).
When WebFetching a large markdown list, prompt the fetch with something specific — e.g. ask it to extract entries under a given category, or entries matching specific keywords the user cares about. Do not try to ingest the whole awesome-selfhosted list.
3. Filter against tracked services
For each candidate, run:
./scan-services.sh exists "<name>"
Exit 0 = already tracked (skip). Exit 1 = new (keep). This handles fuzzy matches (case, punctuation, substrings) so "Plex" correctly matches the existing plexmediaserver directory.
4. Rank the survivors
For each survivor with a GitHub repo, fetch its star count:
./scan-services.sh stars <owner/repo>
Rank by a mix of: stars (popularity signal), category fit (does the user already run similar tools?), and whether the upstream publishes a docker-compose.yml (lowers friction to add).
Deprioritize:
- Abandoned repos (no commits in 12+ months — check
git log via GitHub API if in doubt)
- Services with no Docker support
- Duplicates of things the user already runs (e.g. don't suggest another dashboard if they run Homepage + Homarr)
5. Present the shortlist
Output format — one block per candidate, no more than 5 candidates unless the user asked for more:
**<Name>** — <category>
<One-sentence description>
Repo: <owner/repo> (<stars>★)
Compose: <yes/no, path if yes>
Why it fits: <one sentence tying it to what they already run>
End with: "Want me to scaffold any of these? I can run ./scan-services.sh scaffold <name> <repo> <compose_path> to pull the compose file and add a services.yaml entry."
6. Scaffold on request
Only if the user approves a specific candidate:
./scan-services.sh scaffold <name> <owner/repo> <compose_path> [branch]
This creates <name>/docker-compose.yml, tries common branch names if the default fails, and appends a services.yaml entry.
If the scaffold fails (upstream doesn't publish a compose file): fall back to hand-rolling a minimal compose from the project's README/docs (image, ports, volumes). In that case, skip the services.yaml entry — there's nothing to track — and note this to the user. Follow the existing repo style: restart: unless-stopped, ./data bind mount, port mapped as "host:container".
After scaffolding:
- Read the new compose file and summarize what the user will need to customize (volumes, env vars, ports).
- Run
./check-ports.sh (or grep the host port across existing compose files — check-ports.sh currently requires bash 4+ which macOS lacks).
- Insert a README table row. Read the applications table in
README.md to find the right category:
- If a matching category exists, add a row with an empty first cell (
| |), matching the existing indent/alignment.
- If no category fits, add a new
**Category** row in a logical spot (adjacent to related categories — e.g. Notes near Books/RSS, NVR near Home Automation).
- Row format:
| **Category** | [Name](homepage-url) | One-sentence description. | [GitHub](repo-url) | [Compose](<dir>) |
- Match the style of nearby rows (description length, whether GitHub link is present, etc.).
- Verify with
git diff README.md that the table still renders (columns aligned, no broken pipes).
Guardrails
- Do not scaffold without explicit approval. Scanning is cheap; creating directories and editing services.yaml is not. Always present the shortlist first.
- Do not suggest more than ~5 candidates unless asked. This is a curation task, not a dump.
- Do not WebFetch the entire awesome-selfhosted list in one go. It's huge. Fetch with a focused prompt (category or keyword) so the response stays small.
- Respect the repo's style. Compose files use 2-space indent, services.yaml groups by category with
# ── Name ── dividers, the README table has 4 columns after the category. Match existing conventions when scaffolding and editing the table.
- Check for nested duplicates.
./scan-services.sh exists now greps service keys inside existing compose files. Still, if a candidate is a common add-on (e.g. an Ollama frontend, a Grafana sidecar), do a sanity grep before proposing it — some services live inside a parent stack's compose file.
