Files
internet_use_control/README.md
Sam Rolfe eb300b6701 Phase 10: publish the documentation set + tick AGENTS.md 9 of 10
Phase 10 (the last phase of this project) is the project-docs pass. Update the
Gitea README, add the Mermaid source and rendered PNG, build the interactive
Archify map, add the Vikunja board tasks, and write the Outline AI-context
collection in Simplified Technical English.

Deliverables:
- README.md: status header, Phase 4 gap statement, "Architecture" section with
  embedded Mermaid + image + Archify link, "Documentation set" table, an
  explicit two-plane MQTT section (1883 plain+anonymous, 8883 TLS+ACLs), and
  the Android client's Usage Access and VpnService paths.
- AGENTS.md section 11: tick Phase 10, leave Phase 4 unticked, status line now
  "9 of 10 done - only Phase 4 outstanding".
- docs/architecture.mmd + docs/diagrams/architecture.png (mmdc).
- docs/archify/architecture.architecture.json + docs/architecture-map.html
  (Archify, showcase, 9/9 checks, 0 errors).
- docs/outline/00-index.md .. 04-agent-runbook.md (STE).
- docs/vikunja-tasks.json (Vikunja project "Internet Use Control", id 20).
- Obsidian note written to 010 inbox on .27; the obsidian-sorter proposed a
  folder and waits for the vault owner's approval.

Phase 4 (Python Windows computer client) is deliberately deferred and is NOT
built. Every document says so.

Co-Authored-By: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
2026-10-14 12:13:21 +11:00

32 KiB
Raw Blame History

Internet Use Control — Control Service

The Control Service is the brain and the single source of truth for the Internet Use Control project (SYSTEM_MAP.md). It holds schedules, blocklists, per-device state and usage, and serves the web dashboard. Only it publishes device config.

Project status: 9 of 10 phases done. Phases 1–3 and 5–10 are complete (Phase 10, this documentation set, included). Phase 4 — the Windows computer client — is deliberately deferred and is NOT built. There is no Python computer client and no Windows process blocking in this repository. The only enforcement client is the kids' Android app in android/. See AGENTS.md §11.

This repository contains Phases 1–3 and 5–10 (AGENTS.md §11):

  • Go service with its own image (Dockerfile) and compose file.
  • SQLite schema for the whole data model (§7), applied through versioned migrations.
  • Configuration from the process environment (environment.d); no secrets in the repo.
  • A separate session login for Sam.
  • GET /health.
  • HTMX + server-rendered dashboard styled with the Family Home Lab design system (tokens.css copied in).
  • Device registry: add and edit a device, assign it to a child, choose its platform. Persisted in devices.
  • Dashboard cards: name, child, platform, status, current state, time left.
  • Manual lock/unlock from the dashboard, persisted in state and written to the append-only audit log (FR-15).
  • MQTT: each device's desired state is published retained on restrict/<device>/config; device status and telemetry are subscribed and written to SQLite; presence comes from the broker's Last Will and Testament. The broker is transport only — SQLite stays the source of truth.
  • Weekly schedules: a per-device grid of blocking windows, Monday to Sunday, including windows that cross midnight. The Control Service computes the effective state — manual lock or active window — and republishes it at each window boundary, so a schedule turns on and off with nobody touching it.
  • Blocklist / allowlist: per-device app (Android package or Windows process) and site (hostname) entries. While a device is blocked, the device blocks every blocklist value except the allowlist values (Spotify at night). That allow decision is in the published config.
  • Usage: telemetry reports are stored per device, day, app and domain and rolled up into a daily summary. The dashboard shows a week at a time — the daily total plus the top apps and top sites — with dark mode and phone-sized touch targets.
  • Every edit is written to the append-only audit log (FR-15).
  • Overrides: a versioned admin HTTP API for the separate Kotlin admin app (lock, unlock, grant, query state) guarded by a bearer token, plus the shared device keycode (one code, every device) that a kid's client can redeem for a short exemption. Both are recorded in overrides and audit, and a state change is published retained before the API responds.
  • Hub API: the project side of the frozen contract (central_ai_llm_master/docs/ask-contract.md) — GET /capabilities, read-only POST /ask, and POST /notify — all behind the Hub bearer token. /ask answers from SQLite and writes nothing.
  • Alerts: a background engine tells Sam through the house Apprise API when a device reaches its limit (a blocking window turns on, or a manual lock is applied) or has been offline too long. Every alert is recorded in alerts and the audit log, with its delivery outcome.

Nothing here touches the router, Pi-hole, or DNS. Enforcement is device-side and kids-only.

Architecture

Internet Use Control architecture

flowchart LR
    SAM["Sam<br/>browser dashboard"]
    ADMIN["Admin app<br/>kotlin_phone_app_admin"]
    HUB["Hub :8788<br/>read-only /ask"]
    CADDY["Caddy on .35<br/>webrestrict.lab.audasmedia.com.au"]
    CS["Control Service<br/>Go + SQLite :8791"]
    APPRISE["Apprise :8210<br/>alerts + tamper reports"]

    subgraph MQ["Mosquitto on .13 - two planes"]
        TLS["8883 TLS<br/>per-device creds + topic ACLs"]
        PLAIN["1883 plain + anonymous"]
    end

    PHONE["Kids' Android client<br/>Kotlin, Accessibility + overlay"]

    SAM -->|HTTPS| CADDY
    CADDY --> CS
    ADMIN -->|"Bearer token /api/v1"| CS
    HUB -->|"Bearer token /ask"| CS
    CS -->|"retained config"| TLS
    TLS -->|"own config topic"| PHONE
    PHONE -->|"status + telemetry"| TLS
    TLS -->|reports| CS
    CS --> APPRISE

Interactive map: https://maps.lab.audasmedia.com.au/internet_use_control/docs/ (Archify, 9/9 showcase checks). The Mermaid source is docs/architecture.mmd, the rendered image is docs/diagrams/architecture.png, and the Archify specification is docs/archify/architecture.architecture.json.

Documentation set

Layer Artefact Audience
Gitea this README.md developers
Obsidian portfolio note in 010 inbox/ on .27, filed by the sorter humans
Mermaid + Archify docs/architecture.mmd, docs/diagrams/architecture.png, docs/architecture-map.html architects
Vikunja project Internet Use Control (id 20), copy in docs/vikunja-tasks.json humans
Outline docs/outline/00-index.md … 04-agent-runbook.md (Simplified Technical English) AI agents

Quick start (on .13)

cd /home/sam/paseo/projects/internet_use_control

# 1. Create the env file from the template and set real values.
cp environment.d/control-service.env.example environment.d/control-service.env
$EDITOR environment.d/control-service.env

# 2. Build and start. Own image, own container, port 8791.
docker compose up -d --build

# 3. Prove it.
curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8791/health
# {"status":"ok","service":"control-service","version":"0.7.0-phase9",...}

Open http://127.0.0.1:8791/ in a browser. It redirects to /login. Sign in with CONTROL_ADMIN_USERNAME and CONTROL_ADMIN_PASSWORD.

Configuration

All configuration is environment variables. Docker Compose loads them from environment.d/control-service.env (gitignored). The variables can also be exported from ~/.config/environment.d/10-secrets.conf instead; the service reads only the process environment.

Variable Default Purpose
CONTROL_ADDR :8791 Listen address
CONTROL_DB_PATH /data/control.db SQLite file
CONTROL_SESSION_SECRET — (required) Signs the session cookie, ≥ 16 chars
CONTROL_SESSION_TTL 12h Session lifetime
CONTROL_COOKIE_SECURE true Secure cookie flag; keep true behind HTTPS
CONTROL_ADMIN_USERNAME sam Dashboard login
CONTROL_ADMIN_PASSWORD — Plaintext password (option A)
CONTROL_ADMIN_PASSWORD_HASH — bcrypt hash (option B, preferred)
CONTROL_ADMIN_API_TOKEN — Bearer token for the versioned admin API (Phase 8); empty disables it with 503
CONTROL_DEVICE_KEYCODE_HASH — bcrypt hash of the shared device keycode, seeded into SQLite at start-up
CONTROL_APP_ENV production Label shown in the footer
CONTROL_LOG_LEVEL info debug/info/warn/error
CONTROL_TIMEZONE Australia/Sydney IANA zone weekly windows are evaluated in
CONTROL_MQTT_ENABLED true Turn the broker link on or off
CONTROL_MQTT_BROKER tcp://host.docker.internal:1883 Broker URL; tls://…:8883 once the TLS listener exists
CONTROL_MQTT_CLIENT_ID control-service MQTT client id
CONTROL_MQTT_USERNAME — Control Service broker account
CONTROL_MQTT_PASSWORD — its password
CONTROL_MQTT_CA_FILE /etc/webrestrict/tls/ca.crt PEM bundle that verifies the broker (TLS only)
CONTROL_MQTT_INSECURE false Allow a plaintext, credential-less broker. Only for a broker with no TLS listener
CONTROL_HUB_TOKEN — Bearer token the Hub sends to /capabilities, /ask and /notify (Phase 9); empty disables them with 503
CONTROL_APPRISE_URL http://192.168.20.35:8210 House Apprise API that alerts and notifications are delivered through
CONTROL_APPRISE_KEY — Stored Apprise configuration key (option A)
CONTROL_APPRISE_URLS — Stateless Apprise destination list (option B, lab default)
CONTROL_APPRISE_TOKEN — Optional bearer token for a protected Apprise API
CONTROL_ALERTS_ENABLED true Turn the limit/offline alert engine on or off
CONTROL_ALERT_OFFLINE_AFTER 30m How long a device may be unreachable before Sam is told
CONTROL_ALERT_INTERVAL 30s How often the alert engine re-evaluates device state

Generate a bcrypt hash without host Go:

docker run --rm --entrypoint /app/control webrestrict/control:0.7.0-phase9 \
  hash-password 'your-password'

CONTROL_MQTT_USERNAME/CONTROL_MQTT_PASSWORD are required unless CONTROL_MQTT_INSECURE=true, and a non-TLS broker is refused unless CONTROL_MQTT_INSECURE=true (AGENTS.md §10 rule 6). The escape hatch exists for a broker that has no TLS listener; the running deployment on .13 does not use it. Since 2026-10-13 the shared Mosquitto also serves a TLS listener on 8883 with per-device credentials and a topic ACL (tls://host.docker.internal:8883), so CONTROL_MQTT_INSECURE=false. deploy/mosquitto/README.md is the design, the apply runbook and the rollback.

MQTT (Phase 3)

Broker: the shared Mosquitto on .13. A second broker is not added (§10 rule 6). The broker has two planes. They are separate listeners on the same container, and only one of them is trusted.

Plane Port Security Who uses it
Plain 1883 Plain text, anonymous Legacy and other house consumers. Unchanged, and not used by this project.
TLS 8883 TLS, per-device credentials, topic ACLs The Control Service and every kid device.

On the 8883 plane a device may read only its own restrict/<device>/config topic, and write only its own restrict/<device>/status and restrict/<device>/telemetry topics. The Control Service is the only identity that may publish config. Without that ACL a child could publish a fake "unlocked". The listener, the password file and the ACL are in deploy/mosquitto/conf.d/webrestrict.conf and webrestrict.acl; deploy/mosquitto/README.md holds the design, the live apply and the rollback.

Caveat to carry forward: per_listener_settings true is deprecated in Mosquitto 2.1 and is removed in 3.0. Pin the broker image tag before an upgrade.

Topic Direction Retained Payload
restrict/<device>/config service → device yes desired state
restrict/<device>/status device → service yes presence (online)
restrict/<device>/telemetry device → service no usage totals for a day
  • <device> is restrict/<slug>_<id> from devices.topic, which is stored when the device is created and never changes. <id> is its MQTT username.
  • The service publishes each device's config retained on startup, after every lock, unlock, expiry, create and edit, and again every 15 minutes so a broker that lost its retained store is repaired from SQLite.
  • Devices use the 8883 TLS listener with one account each; the broker's ACL lets a device read only its own config and write only its own status and telemetry, and the Control Service is the only identity that may publish config.
  • A device registers the will {"online": false} on its status topic, so the broker reports the drop the moment the connection dies. That is presence (FR-6); no polling.
  • Reports are written to SQLite. Telemetry is a rolling daily total per (device, day, app, domain), so a repeated report replaces the row rather than adding to it (migration 002).

Config payload (v1)

{"v":1,"device_id":1,"name":"Harry's phone","platform":"android",
 "locked":true,"until":"2026-10-13T21:00:00Z",
 "allow":["com.spotify.music"],"block":["com.youtube.android","roblox.exe"],
 "reason":"schedule","generated_at":"2026-10-13T03:30:27Z"}

allow and block are always arrays, never null. locked and until are the effective state: a reason of schedule means a weekly window is active, manual means a lock was set from the dashboard or the admin API, and grant means a time-limited exemption is active, in which case grant_until (RFC3339) is set and locked is false. While locked is true the device blocks every block value except the allow values (FR-4), so the allowlist is the exception list. A client must ignore unknown fields, so this shape can grow.

Status payload (device → service)

{"online":true,"app":"com.spotify.music","at":"2026-10-13T03:30:27Z"}

The will the device registers on the same topic is {"online":false}. A report with no online field counts as online, because the device just talked to us.

Telemetry payload (device → service)

{"day":"2026-10-13",
 "apps":[{"name":"com.spotify.music","seconds":600}],
 "domains":[{"name":"youtube.com","seconds":120}]}

A flat single-row form ({"app":"…","seconds":600}) is also accepted. Seconds are totals for day, in YYYY-MM-DD; a missing or malformed day uses today.

List the MQTT identity of every device (tokens, no secrets):

docker exec webrestrict-control /app/control mqtt-clients

Endpoints (Phase 2–9)

Method Path Notes
GET /health JSON. status: ok, database check. No auth.
GET /login Session login form.
POST /login Verifies credentials, sets a signed session cookie.
POST /logout Clears the session.
GET / Dashboard: service status, device cards, recent activity.
GET /partials/status HTMX fragment, polled every 10 s.
GET /devices/new Add-device form.
POST /devices Creates a device.
GET /devices/{id}/edit Edit-device form.
POST /devices/{id} Updates name, child, platform.
POST /devices/{id}/lock Locks now; optional minutes (0 = until unlocked).
POST /devices/{id}/unlock Unlocks now.
GET /devices/{id}/schedule Weekly schedule editor (grid of windows).
POST /devices/{id}/schedule Replaces the device's windows; clear=1 clears them.
GET /devices/{id}/lists Blocklist / allowlist editor.
POST /devices/{id}/lists Adds one entry (`table=block
POST /devices/{id}/lists/{entryID}/delete Removes one entry.
GET /devices/{id}/usage Usage for one device: a week of daily totals, top apps and top sites. ?week=YYYY-MM-DD selects the week (any day in it; default today).

Admin API (Phase 8)

All admin endpoints are under /api/v1, use JSON, and require Authorization: Bearer $CONTROL_ADMIN_API_TOKEN. This token is separate from the dashboard session login. Responses use one envelope:

{"ok":true,"action":"lock","device":{"id":1,"name":"Harry's phone",
  "child":"Harry","platform":"android","topic":"restrict/harry_s_phone_1/config",
  "online":true,"last_seen":null,"locked":true,"until":"2026-10-13T21:00:00Z",
  "grant_until":null,"reason":"manual","updated_at":"2026-10-13T10:29:59Z"}}
Method Path Body Notes
GET /api/v1/admin/devices — Every device with its effective state.
GET /api/v1/admin/devices/{id} — One device. 404 if unknown.
POST /api/v1/admin/devices/{id}/lock {"minutes":30} or {"until":"2026-10-13T21:00:00+11:00"} or {} Lock now. {} means until unlocked; the two time fields are mutually exclusive.
POST /api/v1/admin/devices/{id}/unlock {} or empty Clear the manual lock and any grant.
POST /api/v1/admin/devices/{id}/grant {"minutes":30} or {"until":"…"} Grant time: unlocked until then, even during a schedule window, then the schedule re-applies. A time is required.
POST /api/v1/device/override {"device_id":1,"keycode":"…","minutes":15} The on-device keycode path. No bearer token. Wrong codes are throttled and audited.

minutes is capped (grants at 24 h, locks at 7 days). Errors are {"ok":false,"error":"…"} with 400 (bad body), 401 (bad token or keycode), 404 (unknown device), 429 (keycode throttled) or 503 (admin API or keycode not configured). A 200 means the state was stored and the retained config was accepted by the broker, so the device changes without a poll.

Every form POST needs the csrf field from the session cookie. State changes append to the audit table and republish the device's retained config. Devices are never hard-deleted (§10 rule 10).

Hub API (Phase 9)

The project side of the frozen contract (central_ai_llm_master/docs/ask-contract.md). All three endpoints require Authorization: Bearer $CONTROL_HUB_TOKEN, a shared token separate from the dashboard session and the admin API. With no token set they answer 503.

Method Path Notes
GET /capabilities {"project":"internet_control","topics":[…],"people":[…]}. The Hub reads it to route a question; the name matches the Hub's routing.md row.
POST /ask Read-only. Body is the contract's AskRequest; the reply is always 200 with an answer or answer:null plus a reason.
POST /notify Accepts the contract's {"from","level","message","person"} and delivers it to Sam through Apprise.

/ask answers these intents from SQLite, deterministically and without an LLM:

curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $CONTROL_HUB_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"question":"how long have the kids been on screens today?","asker":"sam"}' \
  http://127.0.0.1:8791/ask
# {"answer":"The kids have had 1h 22m of screen time today.",
#  "data":{"day":"2026-10-13","total_seconds":4925,
#          "by_device":[{"device":"Harry's phone","child":"Harry",
#                        "seconds":4925,"app_seconds":4925,"domain_seconds":4800}]},
#  "expires":"2026-10-13T05:52:33Z"}
  • Screen time: a device-day is measured by its foreground-app total; the domain total is used only when a device reports no apps at all, so a report that carries both is not double-counted.
  • What is blocked: the currently blocked devices and until when.
  • Presence: which devices are online, and for how long an offline one has been down.
  • One person at most: the person field (or a child named in the question) scopes the answer; only sam may ask.

/ask is read-only (AGENTS.md §10 rule 9). It calls only store read methods and writes nothing, including no audit row; TestAskWritesNothing asserts it.

Alerts (Phase 9)

A background engine (internal/alert) evaluates device state every CONTROL_ALERT_INTERVAL and raises one alert per transition:

  • Limit hit — a device became blocked (a weekly window turned on, or a manual lock was applied), or
  • Offline too long — presence is false and the last report is older than CONTROL_ALERT_OFFLINE_AFTER. A device that has never reported is not alerted.

The alert is recorded in alerts before delivery, then sent through Apprise. The delivered flag and any error are written back, so a delivery failure is visible rather than silent. The dedup state in alert_state makes an alert fire once per transition, and a restart seeds that state without replaying an old limit.

POST /notify uses the same Apprise path for on-demand messages (a tamper report from a phone client, FR-17, will use it).

Operational views of the same data:

docker exec webrestrict-control /app/control alerts --limit 10
docker exec webrestrict-control /app/control usage --day 2026-10-13 --detail

Telemetry and usage (Phase 7)

Usage arrives on restrict/<device>/telemetry and is stored in telemetry: one row per (device, day, app, domain), where a repeat report for the same key replaces the earlier total (a rolling daily total, not a delta).

telemetry_daily is the daily rollup — one row per (device, day) — written together with the detail row and rebuildable from it with control rollup. Apps and domains are summed into separate columns on purpose: a report may carry both for the same session, so a single total would double-count the time. The rollup is derived data, never a second source of truth.

GET /devices/{id}/usage shows one Monday-to-Sunday week: the app total and the site total per day, then the top 10 apps and top 10 sites for the week. The screen uses the Family Home Lab tokens, follows the OS light/dark preference (there is a toggle in the nav bar), and works on a phone browser.

Retention:

  • The daily rollup is kept long; the detail table is small and kept too. Nothing is hard-deleted (AGENTS.md §10 rule 10).
  • The append-only audit log is size-capped at 20 000 rows by the service's maintenance loop, oldest first (§7). It is never edited in place.

Rebuild the rollup from the detail table at any time (idempotent, safe while the service is up; the service also does it at start-up and every 15 minutes):

# inside the container
docker exec webrestrict-control /app/control rollup
# or against a database file on the host
/app/control rollup --db /data/control.db

Schedules, blocklists and allowlists (Phase 6)

A schedule is a set of weekly blocking windows per device: a weekday (Monday = 0 … Sunday = 6), a local HH:MM start and end, and an end earlier than the start means the window crosses midnight (Monday 20:00–07:00 ends Tuesday 07:00). A window means restrictions are ON during that time.

The effective state is a manual lock, an active window, or neither. The Control Service computes it and publishes it retained. A manual lock with no end time (“until I unlock”) never lifts; otherwise the later of the manual end and the covering window's end is used. A background loop republishes at the next window boundary, so a window starts and ends on time without a poll.

A blocklist entry is blocked while a window is active or the device is locked. An allowlist entry (each entry is app or site) is the exception list: the device blocks every blocklist value except the allowlist. For example, with com.spotify.music allowlisted and com.youtube.android blocked, Spotify stays available and YouTube does not. Hostnames are lower-cased; app values keep their case.

Overrides (Phase 8)

An override is a deliberate change to a device's desired state. There are two paths (AGENTS.md §4 FR-10):

  1. The admin app, over the versioned HTTP API above. It is the remote lock/unlock/grant surface.
  2. The device keycode, entered on the kid's device. One code is shared by every device (§10 rule 3). A correct code grants a short exemption through POST /api/v1/device/override; the clients in Phases 4–5 will call it.

Semantics:

  • lock sets the manual lock (state.locked). With no end it never lifts; with an end it lifts at that time.
  • unlock clears the manual lock and any grant, returning the device to its schedule.
  • grant unlocks the device until its end, even inside a schedule window, and records grant_until. When the grant ends the weekly schedule applies again — the Control Service treats the grant end as a republish boundary, so the device re-locks on time.

Every override is written to the overrides table and to the append-only audit log (FR-15), with the actor: admin-api, device-keycode, or sam from the dashboard. A lock clears a grant and a grant clears a lock, so the two cannot contradict each other.

The shared device keycode

The code is never stored or logged in plaintext. It is a bcrypt hash in SQLite. CONTROL_DEVICE_KEYCODE_HASH seeds the first run; after that the stored code is authoritative, so a change made with control keycode survives a restart:

# Set a code you choose (read from stdin, so it never reaches the process list).
docker exec -i webrestrict-control /app/control keycode <<< '246810'

# Or generate a random six-digit code and print it once to put on each device.
docker exec webrestrict-control /app/control keycode --generate

The keycode endpoint is throttled: five wrong codes from one address freeze that address for five minutes, and every attempt is audited. It returns 503 when no keycode is configured.

Prove a lock reaches a device in under a second

The Phase 8 definition of done. make verify-phase8 issues a lock through the API and measures the time until a broker subscriber receives the retained restrict/<device>/config message:

make verify-phase8

It needs the control-service broker credentials (deploy/mosquitto/clients.env) and a device that exists. It never restarts or reconfigures anything shared.

Prove the Hub answers and the alerts deliver

The Phase 9 definition of done. make verify-phase9 calls /capabilities and /ask, checks the answer against an independent count from the telemetry detail table, triggers a limit alert and an offline-too-long alert, and posts a notification:

make verify-phase9

Each alert is checked in the alerts table for delivered; a recorded but undelivered alert fails the script with the delivery error shown. It needs CONTROL_HUB_TOKEN, CONTROL_ADMIN_API_TOKEN, a working Apprise destination and the device broker credentials. It leaves the device unlocked and online.

Development

There is no host Go toolchain on .13; use the cached builder image.

make test          # go test ./... in golang:1.25-alpine
make vet           # go vet ./...
make build         # build the container image
make up            # docker compose up -d --build
make logs          # follow container logs
make mqtt-verify   # prove TLS + credentials + ACLs on a throwaway broker
make verify-phase8 # prove an API lock reaches a device in under a second
make verify-phase9 # prove the Hub answers and the Apprise alerts deliver

make test and make vet run the container as your own user and keep the module cache in .gocache/ (gitignored), so nothing in the repository ends up owned by root. make mqtt-verify never touches the shared Mosquitto: it stages a scratch broker on 127.0.0.1:18883 and removes it afterwards.

Kids' Android client (Phase 5.1)

android/ is the kids' phone app: a normal Gradle project with its own gradlew. It blocks by interruption — an Accessibility Service sees the foreground package and a full-screen overlay covers any app on the blocklist while the device is locked (FR-16). There is no Device Owner, no factory reset and no managed profile; the child can disable it, and the enforcement is the tamper alert (FR-17).

  • Telemetry comes from Usage Access (UsageCollector.kt), reported per app and per day over the device's own telemetry topic.
  • Site filtering uses a device-local VpnService (SiteFilterVpnService.kt, SiteFilter.kt, DnsMessage.kt, IpPacket.kt). No router, no Pi-hole, no change to the house DNS (FR-18).
  • The block decision is in BlockEngine.kt, from the config payload in DeviceConfig.kt.

A tamper report rides the device's own status topic, because that is the only topic its broker ACL may write:

{"online":true,"tamper":{"kind":"accessibility_disabled","detail":"the service was destroyed"}}

internal/mqtt parses it, internal/alert records a tamper alert and delivers it through Apprise, so it reaches Sam. The client also reports a revoked overlay permission and a force-stop on the next start. It keeps the last config on disk, so a broker-less device keeps its rules (FR-14).

The block path and the tamper alert are proven on the headless pixel35 emulator on .27; see android/README.md and android/tools/emu-proof.sh.

Layout

cmd/control/            service entry point (+ hash-password, mqtt-clients, rollup, keycode, alerts, usage)
android/                kids' Android client (Gradle, Kotlin; Accessibility + overlay)
  app/src/main/java/…    Accessibility Service, overlay, block rule, MQTT, tamper report
  tools/emu-proof.sh     headless emulator proof (block overlay + tamper)
internal/config/        environment configuration
internal/store/         SQLite open, migrations, audit, devices + state
  devices.go            device registry, desired state, lock + grant expiry
  schedules.go          weekly windows and the effective state (incl. grants)
  reports.go            presence, telemetry, the daily rollup, top lists, audit cap
  alerts.go             alert records and per-device dedup state
  lists.go              allow/block lists and device lookup by topic
  overrides.go          override history + the shared device keycode
  migrations/001_init.sql … 005_alerts.sql
internal/auth/          signed-cookie session login + CSRF
internal/apprise/       Apprise API client (alerts and notifications)
internal/alert/         the limit/offline alert engine (transition -> Apprise)
internal/hub/           the Hub contract: capabilities, read-only answers, notify
internal/mqtt/          the broker link: retained config out, reports in
  payload.go            topic and payload contract for the kids' clients
  link.go               paho client, subscriptions, publish, TLS verification
internal/web/           HTTP handlers, templates, static assets
  devices.go            device registry + manual lock/unlock handlers
  admin_api.go          versioned admin API + the device keycode endpoint
  hub_api.go            /capabilities, /ask (read-only), /notify
  schedules.go          weekly schedule and block/allow editors
  usage.go              usage screen: week grid, top apps, top sites
  templates/            login, dashboard, device form, editors, usage, partials
  static/               tokens.css (Family Home Lab), app.css, theme.js, htmx, fonts
Dockerfile              own image (multi-stage, CGO-free)
docker-compose.yml      own container, port 8791
environment.d/          control-service.env.example (real file gitignored)
deploy/caddy/           Caddy vhost for webrestrict.lab.audasmedia.com.au
deploy/mosquitto/       TLS listener, credentials, topic ACL, verifier
deploy/verify-phase8.sh lock latency proof
deploy/verify-phase9.sh Hub + alerts proof
docs/architecture.mmd   Mermaid source for the diagram in this README
docs/diagrams/          rendered Mermaid PNG
docs/archify/           Archify specification for the interactive map
docs/architecture-map.html  interactive Archify map (published to the maps site)
docs/outline/           AI-context collection (Simplified Technical English)
docs/vikunja-tasks.json copy of the Vikunja board tasks

Caddy

deploy/caddy/webrestrict.caddy holds the vhost for webrestrict.lab.audasmedia.com.au. The terminating Caddy runs on .35 (sam-Ubuntu1); see that file for the two proxy patterns and the apply commands.

Non-goals (Phase 10)

  • Phase 4, the Windows computer client, is not built. It is deliberate. The Python client, process blocking, and the Windows overlay warning do not exist. The project stands at 9 of 10 because of this single gap.
  • No grant button in the dashboard. Grant is on the admin API; the dashboard has lock and unlock. Adding the button is a later UI change.
  • No per-child or per-device keycode. One code, every device (§10 rule 3).
  • No HTTP telemetry ingest. Telemetry arrives over MQTT only. The kids' phone client exists (Phase 5). The kids' computer client does not (Phase 4, deferred).
  • No Alerts screen in the dashboard yet. The alert history is in alerts and is readable with control alerts; the screen is a later UI change.
  • The Hub is wired to this service: the running Hub on .13:8788 routes screen-time questions here and returns the answer. Registration is host configuration, not code: the project is in the Hub's HUB_PROJECTS and HUB_PROJECT_INTERNET_CONTROL_TOKEN, and the Hub's human-owned routing.md row already names the project internet_control (which is why /capabilities uses that name).