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DoGaMa-serv/docs/product/vision-and-scope.md
2026-08-06 19:21:08 +02:00

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Vision and scope

Vision

DoGaMa lets a household or a small trusted group install, operate, update and protect a few private game servers without becoming Docker experts. The normal path is graphical, understandable and safe: choose a game, review the deployment, configure resources and storage, then create the instance.

The product must remain lightweight enough for a self-hosted machine already running other services. It is not a general-purpose container manager and must not expose unrelated containers.

Target users

  • An administrator who owns the host and controls catalog, users, storage roots, public address, policies and instances.
  • A manager trusted to operate one or more assigned instances.
  • A user invited to play on one or more instances and perform safe day-to-day actions.
  • A contributor who adds a game using a YAML template and, only when necessary, a small WebAssembly adapter.

V1 outcomes

  • Install DoGaMa with a minimal two-service Compose deployment.
  • Complete first-run administrator creation in the web UI.
  • Browse a local catalog and deploy a Palworld instance from the reference template.
  • Manage only registered DoGaMa instances through the restricted agent.
  • Assign user or manager access independently for each instance.
  • Start, stop, inspect health, view connection information and see available game data.
  • Configure ports, resource limits, storage, server settings, mods where supported and update policy.
  • Create manual or cron backups with an instance-specific retention count.
  • Import data during instance creation or into an existing instance; validate, restore and export safely.
  • Update an instance with a pre-update backup and controlled rollback.
  • Configure email, generic webhook and Discord notifications from the UI.
  • Record a deliberately small audit trail with an administrator-configurable retention, default 30 days.
  • Load versioned WebAssembly adapters with explicit capabilities and instance-scoped network access.

Explicit non-goals for V1

  • General Docker administration or display of unrelated containers.
  • Commercial hosting, billing, customer quotas, ticketing or public marketplaces.
  • Kubernetes, multi-datacenter orchestration or remote multi-node agents.
  • Automatic router/NAT/firewall configuration.
  • Automatic updates enabled by default.
  • Arbitrary shell commands, arbitrary docker exec, arbitrary host mounts or arbitrary module networking.
  • Native, shared-library, script or container-based integration modules.
  • Long-term time-series monitoring or high-volume logs.
  • Remote backup providers; the data model may allow a later extension.
  • Guaranteed conversion between every local-save and dedicated-server format.

Product principles

  1. Safe defaults over clever automation.
  2. A preview before deployment or destructive changes.
  3. Capabilities drive the UI; unavailable game features are hidden or clearly disabled.
  4. Server-specific complexity belongs in a template or minimal adapter, never in generic orchestration code.
  5. Human-readable contracts and machine-readable validation evolve together.
  6. When compatibility cannot be proven, the interface says “probable” or “unknown”, never “guaranteed”.