Choose only useful cards

  1. Open the sliders button.
  2. Keep the cards required for the selected computer.
  3. Clear unavailable or irrelevant metrics rather than filling the dashboard with empty cards.
  4. Choose Compact for a normal page or Detailed for deeper inspection.

Edit individual cards

  1. Choose Edit dashboard.
  2. Rename a card when a clearer label would help.
  3. Choose number, bar, gauge, sparkline or minimal display.
  4. Select a colour that still has good contrast in the active theme.
  5. Change the card width and height only when the widget has enough room.
  6. Reorder cards so the most important health signals appear first.

Suggested layouts

Good to know
  • Everyday: CPU, memory, disk, healthy targets and alerts.
  • Network: network in, network out, packet or adapter information and uptime.
  • Storage: disk usage, free space, read and write activity.
  • Wallboard: large gauges for CPU, memory and disk with sparklines for traffic.

Save a dashboard profile

  1. Arrange the visible cards and choose Compact or Detailed.
  2. Open Advanced settings.
  3. Enter a short profile name such as Everyday, Storage or Wallboard.
  4. Save the profile.
  5. Choose its name later to restore that card selection and layout.

Automatic profile rotation

Rotation switches between saved profiles at the chosen interval. It requires at least two profiles and is intended for an unattended wallboard. Leave rotation off on an interactive dashboard so the view does not change while you are using it.

Set warning and critical thresholds

CPU, memory and disk have warning and critical percentages. A sensible starting point is 85% warning and 95% critical, but storage may need earlier warning on small disks. Critical must be higher than warning. Adjust thresholds to the normal behaviour of each environment rather than reacting to every short spike.

Header notifications

When header alerts are enabled, HomeStart notifies you when a metric enters a new warning or critical state. It avoids sending the same notification on every refresh. Returning to normal and crossing the threshold again can create a new notification.

Custom PromQL cards

  1. Open Advanced settings only when a required metric is not built in.
  2. Give the card a clear name.
  3. Enter one read-only PromQL expression.
  4. Add a short unit such as %, GB, ms or req/s when appropriate.
  5. Save the card and confirm it produces a value for the selected system.

PromQL examples

A custom query must match the labels and metric names available in your own Prometheus installation. Start in the Prometheus query screen, verify the expression there, and only then add it to HomeStart. Avoid copying queries for exporters you have not installed.