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Dashy

Dashy dashboard

Setup​

Enable it in .env.shared and run the setup script — .env and dashy-conf.yml are rendered from their *.exist.* templates automatically:

EXIST_IS_SERVICES_DASHY=true    # in .env.shared
./existential.sh && docker compose up -d

Three files, one of them yours​

Dashy's config is the one place the stack bakes your domain into a file rather than passing it as an environment variable — Dashy reads a static conf.yml and does no variable substitution of its own. So that the baked value can never go stale, dashy-conf.yml is regenerated on every ./existential.sh run. Change EXIST_DOMAIN and every tile follows on the next run; nothing to remember.

FileTracked?Role
dashy-conf.exist.ymlyesThe template. Which services appear, in what sections.
dashy-conf.ymlnoGenerated, and overwritten every run — until you claim it.

Claiming the file​

Want it your way? Open services/dashy/dashy-conf.yml and change one line in the header:

# EXIST_KEEP: false     →     # EXIST_KEEP: true

That's it. The file is now yours: ./existential.sh will never overwrite it again. Edit it freely. (./existential.sh reset would archive it along with everything else rendered, but it moves the file rather than destroying it.)

The trade-off is the one you'd expect — a claimed file stops tracking EXIST_DOMAIN, and new services won't add themselves to your dashboard. You're maintaining it by hand from then on. To hand it back, set EXIST_KEEP: false (or delete the file) and the next run regenerates it from the template.

To change what ships by default for everyone, edit dashy-conf.exist.yml instead — slugs there must match a reverse_proxy backend in hosting/caddy/Caddyfile.exist.Caddyfile, which ./existential.sh validate enforces.

Editing from the Dashy UI​

Dashy's built-in config editor can normally write conf.yml back to disk. That is disabled here (appConfig.preventWriteToDisk, plus a read-only mount): the file is regenerated every run, so anything saved that way would vanish without warning. Claim the file with EXIST_KEEP: true if you want durable edits. Per-browser local saves still work for temporary tweaks.