Ideas and tidy (#17)

* Update ideas

* don't allow long workload names to mess up alignment in status output

* another idea

Author: BenSmith

docs/ideas.md

@@ -4,51 +4,13 @@
 > 
 > Review periodically and pick what sounds interesting.
 
-**Last Updated:** 2026-03-16
+**Last Updated:** 2026-04-12
 
 ---
 
 ## Active Consideration
 *Currently thinking about these*
 
-### Workload Library - Practical Services
-**Why:** Validate workload system with real services, build useful infrastructure
-**Effort:** Medium (incremental, ~1 day per service)
-**Value:** High (validates system, immediately useful)
-**Interest:** High
-
-**Services to implement:**
-- [x] Pi-hole (DNS/ad blocking)
-- [x] Local container registry (private image storage)
-- [x] Squid proxy (caching HTTP/rpm proxy)
-- [x] VPN web proxy (route traffic through VPN tunnel)
-- [x] Fileserver (Samba)
-- [x] Gitea or other self-hosted git
-- [x] Monitoring stack (Prometheus + Grafana)
-
----
-
-### Gaming/Desktop Streaming
-Stream games from beefy computer to thin client in another room
-- **Effort:** Unknown (depends on headless display solution)
-- **Value:** High (primary use case)
-- **Interest:** High
-
-**Unknowns:**
-- Does headless Steam work in container?
-- What display server is needed? (Xvfb, Wayland headless, virtual DRM?)
-- Does Sunshine capture containerized apps properly?
-- Resource limits work
-
-**Already validated:**
-- [Cosy](https://github.com/BenSmith/cosy) proves GPU-accelerated apps in containers work
-- Device passthrough (GPU, audio, input) works
-
-**Notes:**
-**Next action:** Test headless Steam (with Cosy?) to validate feasibility
-**Status:** Blocked on validation test
-
-
 ---
 ### Full Desktop Environments in Containers
 **Why:** lots of flexibility in desktop environments, easy to add/remove, and little hypervisor pollution 
@@ -138,24 +100,6 @@ Stream games from beefy computer to thin client in another room
 
 ---
 
-### Standalone Workload System RPM
-**Why:** Make workload system usable on any Fedora/RHEL, not just bootc
-- **Effort:** Medium (RPM spec, testing on non-bootc systems)
-- **Value:** Medium-High (enables broader adoption)
-- **Interest:** Medium
-
-**What gets packaged:**
-- workloadctl
-- workload-generator
-- workload-ensure-user
-- systemd integration files
-- Documentation
-
-**When:** After workload library proves value (have examples to show)
-**Status:** Not started
-
----
-
 ### Advanced Networking Features
 **Current state:** Basic networking works (pasta, host, none, custom networks)
 
@@ -193,51 +137,11 @@ Stream games from beefy computer to thin client in another room
 
 ## Research/Validation Needed
 
-### Headless Gaming Validation
-**Question:** Can Steam run in container without physical display?
-**Method:** Test with Cosy first (already validates GPU apps in containers)
-**Display options:**
-- Xvfb (virtual X11)
-- Wayland headless backend (wlroots)
-- Virtual GPU (DRM render node only)
-
-**Blocks:** Gaming workload implementation
-**Status:** Not tested yet
-
----
-
-### Sunshine Streaming Integration
-**Question:** Does Sunshine capture containerized apps properly?
-**Test:** Run Sunshine alongside containerized Steam, verify capture works
-**Considerations:**
-- Same container vs separate containers (multi-container question)
-- Does Sunshine need special access?
-- Performance overhead?
-
-**Blocks:** Gaming streaming setup
-**Status:** Not tested yet
-
----
-
 ## Easy, High Value
 
 Start here when unsure what to work on:
 
-- [x] **Pi-hole workload** (1 day, immediately useful)
-- [x] **Local container registry** (1 day, useful for dev)
 - [ ] **Simple dev container** (1 day, one language stack)
-- [x] **Prometheus node exporter** (1 day, easy containerization example)
-
----
-
-## Investigate / Validate
-
-### SELinux fcontext for workload directories
-**Question:** Do we actually need the `semanage fcontext -a -t container_file_t` rule for `/var/lib/workloads`?
-- `workload-ensure-user` currently calls `setup_selinux_policy()` + `restore_selinux_labels()` on every service start
-- If the default context works fine in practice (podman may handle this itself), this is dead code
-- **Test:** Disable the SELinux functions, run a workload, check `ls -Z /var/lib/workloads/`
-- **Status:** Not tested yet
 
 ---
 
@@ -247,11 +151,8 @@ Start here when unsure what to work on:
 
 - Web UI for workload management
 - Workload health monitoring with alerts (email/webhook on failures)
-- Container image builder workload (dedicated build environment)
 - CI/CD runner workload (GitLab/GitHub/Gitea runner)
 - Game server workloads (Valheim, Factorio, etc.)
-- Home automation appliance bootc variant (minimal + HA)
-- Gaming-optimized image variant (tuned, low latency kernel)
 - Workload templates/scaffolding (generate from template)
 - Import docker-compose files to workload TOML (migration tool)
 - Ansible integration for provisioning (manage workloads as code)
@@ -264,3 +165,4 @@ Start here when unsure what to work on:
   Pulls newer images for updatable workloads (skip pull=never), restarts only if image changed.
   Could add configurable schedule, notification on updates, and update log.
 - Workloads get LVM provisioned to cap or flex storage
+- consider python3-tomlkit for toml edits that preserve comments

workloadctl/bin/workloadctl

@@ -442,9 +442,16 @@ def cmd_list(args, manager: WorkloadManager):
         print("  No workload configs found")
         return
 
+    # Size the NAME column to fit the longest name, within sensible bounds.
+    # Names longer than the cap are elided with an ellipsis.
+    NAME_MIN = 18
+    NAME_MAX = 28
+    longest = max((len(c.name) for c in configs), default=0)
+    name_w = max(NAME_MIN, min(longest, NAME_MAX))
+
     # Print header
-    print(f"  {'NAME':<18} {'STATUS':<10} {'STATE':<12} {'IMAGE_ID':<14} {'PORTS':<20} {'IMAGE':<30}")
-    print(f"  {'-'*18} {'-'*10} {'-'*12} {'-'*14} {'-'*20} {'-'*30}")
+    print(f"  {'NAME':<{name_w}} {'STATUS':<10} {'STATE':<12} {'IMAGE_ID':<14} {'PORTS':<20} {'IMAGE':<30}")
+    print(f"  {'-'*name_w} {'-'*10} {'-'*12} {'-'*14} {'-'*20} {'-'*30}")
 
     for config in configs:
         status = "enabled" if config.enabled else "disabled"
@@ -490,7 +497,12 @@ def cmd_list(args, manager: WorkloadManager):
         if len(image) > 30:
             image = image[:27] + "..."
 
-        print(f"  {config.name:<18} {status:<10} {state:<12} {image_id:<14} {ports_str:<20} {image:<30}")
+        # Elide long workload names so the column never overflows
+        name = config.name
+        if len(name) > name_w:
+            name = name[:name_w - 3] + "..."
+
+        print(f"  {name:<{name_w}} {status:<10} {state:<12} {image_id:<14} {ports_str:<20} {image:<30}")
 
 
 def cmd_status(args, manager: WorkloadManager):