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The Host Daemon

Most of the stack runs in containers. Three flows run on the host itself, in its own decree project, host/.decree: worker, which reports the host, auto-update, which keeps the install current, and on-boot, which runs your own script when the daemon starts. They run only while a decree daemon runs there, and nothing starts one for you. ./existential.sh says so until one does.

You need decree on the host (the version services/automation/decree/Dockerfile pins), and tmux:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jtmckay/decree/main/install.sh | sh

It installs to ~/.local/bin. If decree --version isn't found, that folder isn't on your PATH: echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc, then open a new shell.

Start it​

From the checkout:

tmux new -d -s existential-host -c "$PWD/host" decree daemon

That lasts until the next reboot. To start it at boot, on Linux with systemd, a user unit, ~/.config/systemd/user/existential-host.service (change the path to your checkout):

[Unit]
Description=existential host decree daemon

[Service]
# oneshot and KillMode=process: the tmux server outlives this unit, so stopping it
# ends the daemon's session and no other.
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
KillMode=process
WorkingDirectory=%h/existential/host
# Where decree, git and docker are: systemd does not read your shell's PATH.
Environment=PATH=%h/.local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
# The emit runs host/boot.sh once (the on-boot flow); without that flow it does nothing.
ExecStart=/usr/bin/tmux new -d -s existential-host "echo | decree emit --machine boot >/dev/null 2>&1; exec decree daemon"
ExecStop=/usr/bin/tmux kill-session -t existential-host

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
systemctl --user enable --now existential-host
sudo loginctl enable-linger "$USER"     # start without a login

On a Mac, a LaunchAgent that runs the same tmux new line at login does the same. tmux attach -t existential-host shows it working.

Check it's working​

tmux has-session -t =existential-host && echo running
tail -3 host/.decree/process.log

Each run ends in a line like ✓ <run> done in 0s. A flow's own output is in host/.decree/runs/<run>/. ./existential.sh also warns while no daemon runs.

On boot​

With the unit above, the daemon is the one thing started at boot, and it can start the rest. ./existential.sh flow on on-boot, then write host/boot.sh. It runs once each time the daemon starts, with tmx in reach, so each process gets its own tmux session and is left alone if it already runs:

tmx -d comfyui 'cd ~/ComfyUI && exec .venv/bin/python main.py --listen 0.0.0.0'

Its output is in host/.decree/runs/; tmux attach -t comfyui shows the process itself.