Ship products, not plumbing.

Reproducible dev environments, service orchestration, and secrets management.
Powered by Nix. No Nix knowledge required.

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The Problem

Configuration files, build tooling, environment setup - this is the bureaucracy of software development. Every new project means re-establishing the same foundations. Every config file represents a decision someone already made thousands of times.

The value of your application lives in your source code, not configuration.

What Stackpanel Does

Stackpanel provides a complete development infrastructure toolkit:

• Zero-config dev environments - Automatic setup for popular stacks with deterministic ports
• Secrets management - Team-based encrypted secrets with AGE/SOPS
• IDE integration - Auto-generated VS Code workspaces and settings
• Global services - PostgreSQL, Redis, Minio with one-line config
• AWS integration - Passwordless AWS access via certificate authentication
• Web Studio - Local web UI for managing your entire stack

No lock-in. Generated files are standard formats in standard locations. Eject anytime with a normal codebase.

No Nix knowledge required. If you can write JSON, you can configure Stackpanel. Or just use the web UI.

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Nix with flakes enabled (Determinate Nix Installer recommended)
• direnv (optional but recommended)

Create a New Project

# Create a new project with the default template
nix flake init -t git+ssh://git@github.com/darkmatter/stackpanel

# Set up direnv
echo 'use flake . --impure' > .envrc
direnv allow

# Or manually enter the shell
nix develop --impure

Add to an Existing Project

# flake.nix
{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    flake-parts.url = "github:hercules-ci/flake-parts";
    devenv.url = "github:cachix/devenv";
    stackpanel.url = "git+ssh://git@github.com/darkmatter/stackpanel";
  };

  outputs = inputs @ {flake-parts, ...}:
    flake-parts.lib.mkFlake {inherit inputs;} {
      imports = [
        inputs.devenv.flakeModule
        inputs.stackpanel.flakeModules.default
      ];

      systems = ["x86_64-linux" "aarch64-linux" "aarch64-darwin" "x86_64-darwin"];

      perSystem = {pkgs, ...}: {
        devenv.shells.default = {
          imports = [inputs.stackpanel.devenvModules.default];

          # Your config
          stackpanel.enable = true;
          packages = [pkgs.nodejs pkgs.bun];
        };
      };
    };
}

Configuration

Edit .stackpanel/config.nix to configure your environment:

{
  enable = true;

  # Themed shell prompt
  theme.enable = true;

  # VS Code integration
  ide.vscode.enable = true;

  # Global services
  globalServices = {
    postgres.enable = true;
    redis.enable = true;
  };

  # AWS certificate auth
  # aws.roles-anywhere.enable = true;
}

Features

Deterministic Ports

Ports are computed from your project name, ensuring everyone on the team gets the same ports without configuration:

my-project → base port 4200
  web      → 4200
  api      → 4201
  postgres → 4210
  redis    → 4211

Secrets Management

Team-based secrets with AGE encryption:

stackpanel.secrets = {
  master-key.enable = true;

  apps.api = {
    dev = {
      DATABASE_URL = "postgres://...";
      API_KEY = "secret:api-key";
    };
  };
};

IDE Integration

Auto-generated VS Code workspace with:

• Correct terminal environment
• Extension recommendations
• Debugger configurations
• Task runners

Web Studio

Local web UI at localhost:9876 for:

• Managing services
• Viewing logs
• Editing configuration
• Installing extensions

Documentation

Full documentation is available at stackpanel.dev:

• Quick Start Guide
• Concepts
• Configuration Reference
• Secrets Management
• AWS Integration

Architecture

For details on the internal architecture, see ARCHITECTURE.md.

Development

# Enter the dev shell
nix develop --impure

# Start all services
dev

# Run the web app only
bun run dev:web

# Run the Go agent
bun run dev:agent

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our contributing guidelines before submitting PRs.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.