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Quasar Documentation

What is a station

An application that comes with its own control panel.

On this page

A station is an application that comes with a control panel written for it.

A catalogue entry says what to deploy. A station says that, and what the application’s page looks like afterwards: tabs, tables, forms and buttons made for that service.

For example, a Minecraft station doesn’t only start a server. It also gives you a console, player management, world backups and a mod manager.

What you get

A station deploys an ordinary application, with everything Quasar gives any application: containers, logs, storage, backups, limits, TLS. On top of that, the application’s page opens on a Station tab.

The platform’s usual tabs are hidden behind Advanced options, at the end of the tab bar. Editing them by hand can break what the station manages, so Quasar asks once before showing them.

Removing a station leaves the application running, without the Station tab.

A station is one YAML document

schema: 1
id: minecraft-station
name: Minecraft
version: "1.0.0"
deploy: { ... }        # what to run: a catalogue entry
permissions: { ... }   # what the script may reach
ui: { ... }            # what the page shows
hooks: { ... }         # when the script runs on its own
script: |              # the logic, in JavaScript
  export function list_mods() { ... }

Like a catalogue, you install it by pasting it or importing it from a URL.

Safe by design

A station is a program written by someone else, so it runs under strict rules:

  • Nothing is allowed by default. Every permission is declared in the document, narrowed by name, and shown to you before installing.
  • A new revision that asks for more is put on hold until you accept it.
  • The script runs in a separate, disposable process, with no access to Docker, the database, the disk or the network. Everything goes through Quasar, which checks permissions.
  • The script never produces HTML. It returns data, and Quasar draws it with its own components.

See security model for details.

Examples

The Quasar repository has six stations in stations/:

File What it is
minecraft.yaml A Minecraft server with a console, players, world archives, mods from Modrinth, and player history. Uses every feature.
postgres.yaml PostgreSQL with a query console, scheduled dumps and restore. No network access at all.
gitea.yaml A Git forge: reads its own API, embeds its pages, and watches GitHub for new releases.
components.yaml One of every panel, with no permissions. A good starting point.
permissions.yaml Every permission, each next to what a refusal looks like.
limits.yaml A station that breaks every limit on purpose, to show the dashboard survives.

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