staxlens documentation
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Version 0.1.x
StaxLens Product Requirements (PRD) #
Status: Draft for spec review · Owner: StaxDash studio.
Problem #
Small distributed teams and operators run hosts across clouds and quiet corners of their network. They need a combined view of CPU, RAM, disk, network, and latency without standing up a heavyweight monitoring stack. Existing SaaS is either per-host expensive, self-service with a steep learning curve, or locks data into a proprietary retention model.
Target users #
- Operators / SREs at small-to-mid teams who want a hosted dashboard for a handful of hosts without managing infrastructure.
- Managed-service providers who need per-node observability across many clients with clean tenant isolation.
- StaxMonitor users who want a hosted companion where on-prem retention is not required.
Solution overview #
A lightweight signed agent (reusing StaxSys/StaxMonitor collection primitives) streams metrics over an authenticated channel to a cloud collector. The collector writes to a multi-tenant store with configurable retention. A web dashboard renders per-host and aggregated views with alerts.
Pipeline #
Agent (per host) ──HTTPS/WSS──▶ Collector ──▶ Multi-tenant store ──▶ Dashboard + alerts
- Agent: small, native, low overhead, configurable cadence, buffered offline writes. Linux/macOS/Windows binaries.
- Collector: authenticates agents, enforces tenant scoping, rate-limits.
- Store: time-series data with retention tiers and downsampling.
- Dashboard: per-host, per-tenant views; alert thresholds; export.
MVP scope (in-scope) #
- Metric collection for CPU, RAM, disk, network, and latency
- Signed binaries and authenticated agent→collector channel
- Multi-tenant data isolation
- Retention tiers (e.g. 1 week / 1 month / 1 year) with downsampling
- Alert thresholds with webhook/email notification
- Per-node subscription billing and self-hosted license option
Out of scope (MVP) #
- Full anomaly detection / ML forecasting
- Log aggregation (metrics only)
- On-prem install of the dashboard (that is StaxMonitor’s role)
- Third-party marketplace integrations
Monetization #
Per-node subscription; self-hosted license for tenants who must retain data in-network; retention-tier add-on. Detailed in the licensing policy.
Timeline #
Specified under Phase 3 of the organization roadmap; build begins in Phase 4.2. This PRD is the definition of done for the spec phase: approved PRD + docs shell + repo skeleton.