Phase 0 · The Constitution

🏗️ The TK Home
Infrastructure Handbook

A living, continuously maintained knowledge base for TK's home lab — built one volume at a time, the same way we built the lab itself: incrementally, with understanding.

Build it once Understand it forever Open-ended No enterprise complexity unless justified

What this is

Not a TrueNAS manual. Not a one-off PDF. This is a living body of knowledge that grows alongside the lab. It started as a single question in a conversation with ChatGPT — "what's a pool?" — and grew into a multi-volume handbook covering storage, networking, virtualization, services, and the philosophy behind building infrastructure you can actually understand.

The website is the canonical version. PDFs are snapshots. The PRD (Product Requirements Document) is the constitution every chapter is measured against.

The 8 design principles

Every chapter, recommendation, and architectural decision in this handbook is measured against these principles. They were drafted in the original conversation with ChatGPT and are the spine of the project.

Principle 1Understand Before You Configure. Never tell the reader to click a button without first explaining why that button exists.

Principle 2Simplicity Wins. Choose the simplest solution that solves today's problem while leaving room for tomorrow.

Principle 3Reliability Over Cleverness. The most elegant system is the one that quietly works for years.

Principle 4Build Incrementally. Never install five new services at once. Build. Test. Learn. Repeat.

Principle 5Document Everything. Today's notes become tomorrow's troubleshooting guide.

Principle 6Automation Should Remove Repetition. Don't automate because it's possible. Automate because it saves time and reduces mistakes.

Principle 7Security Is a Feature. Not bolted on at the end. Built in from day one.

Principle 8Your Infrastructure Should Serve You. Don't build a homelab to impress Reddit. Build one that improves your daily life.

Structure

The handbook has three layers:

📜 The PRD

20 sections defining the mission, audience, writing standards, chapter template, and the complete volume roadmap. The constitution every chapter is measured against.

20 sections · the spine

📘 Volumes

Six volumes, each with its own chapters. Start with Volume 1 (Foundations) — drives, vdevs, pools, datasets, SMB, users, permissions. Build out from there.

6 volumes · 45 chapters

🗺️ Roadmap

What's done, what's in progress, what's coming next. The handbook is open-ended — new volumes get added as the lab evolves.

living plan

How to use this site

Read the PRD first — it defines the philosophy and standards every chapter follows.
Start with Volume 1 if you're new to TrueNAS or ZFS. It builds the mental model before any commands.
Use the sidebar search to find concepts across any page (page-level for now; site-wide search coming in Phase 2).
Print any chapter to PDF using the "Save as PDF" button at the top. The print stylesheet strips nav and produces a clean, book-style export.
Dark mode follows your system by default. Add prefers-color-scheme support to your reader if needed.

Why "handbook" and not "guide"?

A guide is finite. A handbook is something you keep on the shelf and reach for again and again. Five years from now, when TK is running AI servers, a second NAS, and a Kubernetes lab, the handbook will still be relevant — because it documents the thinking, not just the buttons.

Next📜 The PRD — the constitution →

Built by Aida (with the original conversation with ChatGPT as the spec) · v0.1 · July 2026