tracearr

name	tracearr
description	This skill should be used when working with Tracearr media-server monitoring for Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby, including active streams, stream analytics, account-sharing detection, trust scores, alerts, Tautulli/Jellystat imports, Docker deployment, plugin configuration, or Tracearr's public API.

Tracearr

Use this skill for Tracearr media-server monitoring workflows. Tracearr is part of the tracearr plugin, so prefer the plugin settings and generated config over ad hoc credential files.

What Tracearr Is

Tracearr is an open-source, self-hosted monitoring platform for Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby. It unifies multiple media servers into one dashboard and tracks active streams, historical playback, geolocation, bandwidth, transcodes, device usage, library metrics, trust scores, and account-sharing signals.

Common Tasks

• Use scripts/tracearr-api.sh for repeatable Tracearr base/API checks. It loads TRACEARR_URL from this plugin config or ~/.lab/.env, sends TRACEARR_API_KEY as a bearer token when present, and exposes health, api-docs, get, streams, servers, and alerts.
• Deploy Tracearr with Docker, TimescaleDB/PostgreSQL, and Redis.
• Connect Plex through Plex sign-in, or connect Jellyfin/Emby with server URL, friendly name, and API key.
• Investigate active streams, stream map location patterns, transcodes, device health, bandwidth, live TV, and music sessions.
• Review account-sharing detection rules: impossible travel, simultaneous locations, device velocity, concurrent streams, geo restrictions, and account inactivity.
• Configure alerts through Discord webhooks or custom notifications.
• Import history from Tautulli or Jellystat.
• Use Tracearr's read-only public REST API once an API key is generated in settings; Swagger UI is available at /api-docs.

Plugin Configuration

Configure the Tracearr base URL through the tracearr plugin setting tracearr_url. The plugin setup script writes configured values to:

${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/lab-tracearr/config.json

For shell or curl checks, source that generated file and use TRACEARR_URL. Do not create committed env files, paste API keys into examples, or hardcode local service URLs in the skill.

If a Tracearr API key is needed, generate it in Tracearr settings and keep it in a local secret store or runtime-only environment variable until the plugin adds a dedicated sensitive setting for it. Treat API keys, webhook URLs, user IP addresses, and account-sharing evidence as sensitive.

Deployment Notes

• These notes are for deploying the Tracearr application itself, not configuring the tracearr plugin.
• Required runtime services: TimescaleDB/PostgreSQL and Redis.
• Common Docker tags: supervised for all-in-one, latest for app with external DB/Redis, plus next and nightly variants.
• Required environment variables include DATABASE_URL and REDIS_URL.
• Deployment docs generate JWT_SECRET and COOKIE_SECRET as random 64-character hexadecimal values.
• Optional environment variables include PORT, NODE_ENV, LOG_LEVEL, TZ, CORS_ORIGIN, CLAIM_CODE, BASE_PATH, DNS_CACHE_MAX_TTL, GZIP_ENABLED, and BACKUP_DIR.

Fallbacks

This standalone plugin has no MCP server of its own — it's a skills-only package driving Tracearr's REST API directly with curl. If the yarr MCP server/plugin is also installed and configured, prefer that instead: it covers Tracearr both through curated commands (trace_health, trace_stats, trace_streams, trace_users, trace_violations, trace_history, and the destructive trace_terminate_stream) and the generic api.tracearr.get/post passthrough — this standalone skill exists for when yarr isn't available at all. Before saying no tool is available, also search the current tool or gateway catalog for Docker, logs, or other media-stack tools that can inspect the running service. Confirm with the user before taking destructive or privacy-sensitive actions, such as deleting imports, changing alert rules, or exposing account-sharing details.

Focused Validation

• Confirm this plugin hook generated ~/.config/lab-tracearr/config.json when plugin settings are present.
• For live checks, source the generated config and verify the base URL or /api-docs endpoint before assuming Tracearr is reachable.