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+# Severed Infra: Cloud-Native Home Lab
+
+This repository contains the Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and manifest definitions for **Severed**, a modern blog and
+observability stack running on Kubernetes (K3d). It demonstrates how to decouple configuration from code, automate
+observability, and secure internal services—all running locally on your laptop.
+
+## Architecture
+
+The stack is designed to mimic a real-world AWS/Cloud environment but optimized for local development using **K3d** (k3s
+in Docker).
+
+**The Stack:**
+
+* **Cluster:** K3d (Lightweight Kubernetes).
+* **Ingress Controller:** Traefik (Routing `*.localhost` domains).
+* **Application:** Jekyll Static Site served via Nginx (ConfigMap injected).
+* **Observability (LGTM Stack):**
+* **L**oki (Logs).
+* **G**rafana (Visualizations & Dashboards-as-Code).
+* **T**empo (Tracing - *Planned*).
+* **M**onitoring / Prometheus (Metrics).
+* **Agent:** Grafana Alloy (OpenTelemetry Collector) running as a DaemonSet.
+
+## Repository Structure
+
+```text
+Severed-Infra/
+├── apps/                           # Application Manifests
+│   ├── severed-blog.yaml           # Deployment + Service
+│   ├── severed-blog-config.yaml    # Nginx ConfigMap (Decoupled Config)
+│   └── severed-ingress.yaml        # Routing Rules (blog.localhost)
+├── infra/                          # Infrastructure & Observability
+│   ├── alloy-agent.yaml            # DaemonSet for Metrics/Logs Collection
+│   ├── alloy-env.yaml              # Environment Variables
+│   └── observer/                   # The Observability Stack
+│       ├── loki.yaml               # Log Aggregation
+│       ├── prometheus.yaml         # Metric Storage
+│       ├── grafana.yaml            # Dashboard UI (Stateless)
+│       └── dashboard-json.yaml     # "Cluster Health" Dashboard as Code
+└── namespaces.yaml
+```
+
+## Quick Start
+
+### 1. Prerequisites
+
+Ensure you have the following installed:
+
+* [Docker Desktop](https://www.docker.com/)
+* [K3d](https://k3d.io/) (`brew install k3d`)
+* `kubectl` (`brew install kubectl`)
+
+### 2. Boot the Cluster
+
+Create a cluster with port mapping for the Ingress controller:
+
+```bash
+k3d cluster create severed-cluster -p "8080:80@loadbalancer"
+```
+
+### 3. Deploy Infrastructure (Observability)
+
+Spin up the database backends (Loki/Prometheus) and the UI (Grafana).
+
+```bash
+# 1. Create the secret for Grafana Admin
+kubectl create secret generic grafana-secrets \
+  --namespace monitoring \
+  --from-literal=admin-user=admin \
+  --from-literal=admin-password=severed_secure_password
+
+# 2. Deploy the stack
+kubectl apply -f infra/observer/
+
+# 3. Deploy the Collector Agent (Alloy)
+kubectl apply -f infra/alloy-setup.yaml
+```
+
+### 4. Deploy the Application
+
+Deploy the blog and its routing rules.
+
+```bash
+kubectl apply -f apps/
+```
+
+## Access Points
+
+| Service          | URL                                                                                            | Credentials / Notes                                                                               |
+|------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
+| **Severed Blog** | [http://blog.localhost:8080](https://www.google.com/search?q=http://blog.localhost:8080)       | Public Access                                                                                     |
+| **Grafana**      | [http://grafana.localhost:8080](https://www.google.com/search?q=http://grafana.localhost:8080) | **User:** `admin` / **Pass:** `severed_secure_password`<br> <br>*(Anonymous View Access Enabled)* |
+| **Prometheus**   | *Internal Only*                                                                                | Accessed via Alloy/Grafana                                                                        |
+| **Loki**         | *Internal Only*                                                                                | Accessed via Alloy/Grafana                                                                        |
+
+## Observability Features
+
+This stack uses **Grafana Alloy** to automatically scrape metrics and tail logs from all pods.
+
+* **Cluster Health Dashboard:** Pre-provisioned "Infrastructure as Code." No manual setup required.
+* Real-time **CPU/Memory** usage per node.
+* **Disk Usage** monitoring (filtering out overlay/tmpfs noise).
+* **RPS & Error Rates** derived directly from Nginx logs using LogQL.
+* **Log Relabeling:** Alloy automatically promotes hidden K8s metadata (like `app=severed-blog`) into searchable Loki
+  labels.
+
+## Engineering Decisions
+
+* **ConfigMaps vs. Rebuilds:** The Nginx configuration is injected via a ConfigMap (`apps/blog-config.yaml`). We can
+  tweak caching headers or routing rules without rebuilding the Docker image.
+* **Host Networking Fix:** Alloy runs with `hostNetwork: true` to scrape node metrics but uses
+  `dnsPolicy: ClusterFirstWithHostNet` to ensure it can still resolve internal K8s services (`loki.monitoring.svc`).
+* **Security:** Grafana admin credentials are stored in Kubernetes Secrets, not plaintext YAML. Anonymous access is
+  restricted to `Viewer` role only.
+
+---
+
+### Future Roadmap
+
+* [ ] Add Cert-Manager for TLS (HTTPS).
+* [ ] Implement ArgoCD for automated GitOps syncing.
+* [ ] Move to a physical Home Server.