Developing Monitor Apps

Monitor apps are Docker Compose packages under store/apps/<publisher>.<name>/. The Monitor reads their manifest.toml and Compose files, and the desk shows installed apps in a window.

Start with the serverbox-webapp skill when creating or changing an app. Its manifest reference describes each field. The editor schema is docs/schemas/monitor-app.schema.json; the skill’s scripts/validate.py also checks rules that the schema cannot express, and can run Compose validation.

To try an app on a development Monitor, place its package in a directory and set [stacks] local_apps in that Monitor’s config.toml to the directory containing the <publisher>.<name>/ folder. For example:

[stacks]
local_apps = "/srv/sbm-apps"

Restart the Monitor after changing a local package. The App Store reads the local catalog entry, so you can install it and test the deploy flow without adding it to the shipped catalog. For a package at store/apps/example.web, validate it from the repository root with:

python3 .claude/skills/serverbox-webapp/scripts/validate.py store/apps/example.web --compose