kern (always lowercase) is a cross-platform desktop server manager built with tauri v2 (rust backend + react frontend). it turns any folder on your computer into a managed server instance — with a live terminal, telemetry, and graceful lifecycle — and you teach it new server types by installing plugins.

think of it as a self-hosted alternative to cloud game-panel tools (pterodactyl, amp, pufferpanel) — but as a native desktop app driven by a plugin system.

• ·new to kern? start with getting-started — download, register your first instance, start it.
• ·running servers daily? cli for the terminal and dashboard, backups and tasks for the overnight safety net.
• ·building a plugin? read manifest-reference first, then lifecycle, config-schema, and plugin-ui.
• ·writing scripts? automation-api is the full JSON surface, cli is the friendly client.
• ·publishing? see distribution for the registry flow.
• ·stuck? troubleshooting maps symptoms to fixes; recipes has copy-paste setups.

• ·instance — a registered project folder that kern manages. full crud, with orphaned-state detection.
• ·plugin — a .kern file that teaches kern how to run one type of server.
• ·lifecycle — start / stop / restart / install, declared per-plugin and resolved at launch by rust.
• ·host api — the bridge plugins use to talk to tauri commands, events, and the ui shell.

• ·preflight — before a start, kern checks ports the instance used last time (with the owning pid), a pending minecraft eula, and low disk space.
• ·crash watchdog — auto-restart with backoff after unexpected exits, plus a last-crash report (exit code + log tail) on the monitor tab.
• ·notifications — in-app center, native os toasts when unfocused, discord/slack webhooks, and regex log alerts. see notifications.
• ·schedules — interval, daily, or cron tasks (restart / start / stop / command / backup / health) with optional pre-restart console announcements.
• ·audit log — local history of lifecycle actions, config changes, plugin installs, backups, and task runs.
• ·remote access — a full control panel in a browser (console, files with a real editor, backups, schedules, plugins), on your lan over https or anywhere through a cloudflare tunnel, with per-device roles you can invite and revoke. see web-remote.
• ·cli & automation — kern-cli and a loopback-only json api for scripts. see cli.