How do I install Life Dashboard?

Copy the stdio config for Cursor, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or VS Code on this page. It uses the publisher's install, not a PlugMCP proxy.

Does Life Dashboard need an API key?

The publisher lists these environment variables: MCP_TRANSPORT, PGHOST, PGDATABASE, PGUSER, PGPASSWORD.

What transport does Life Dashboard use?

Life Dashboard runs locally over stdio.

When was Life Dashboard last checked?

Last checked 2026-11-10. Read-only health and screen time history from the Postgres of a self-hosted Life Dashboard Stack

Life Dashboard MCP server

Power your agent

Add this server

The publisher's own command. Not a PlugMCP endpoint.

Add to Cursor Add to VS Code Run on PlugMCP

Host a copy with our keys and logs.

Local command

docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/owen282000/life-dashboard-mcp:1.2.1

Credentials from the publisher

MCP_TRANSPORT — Serves MCP on stdio. Over Streamable HTTP, with a bearer token, the stack runs it itself: see docs/mcp.md.
PGHOST — The stack's Postgres: db on the stack's Docker network.
PGDATABASE — The stack's database.
PGUSER — dash_ro, the stack's user that can only read the dash views.
PGPASSWORD — The password of dash_ro: DASH_DB_PASSWORD in the stack's .env.

Claude Code has no install link for a local command. Copy the command below and run it in a terminal.

shClaude Code

1MCP_TRANSPORT=<value> PGHOST=<value> PGDATABASE=<value> PGUSER=<value> PGPASSWORD=<secret> claude mcp add io.github.owen282000-life-dashboard -- docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/owen282000/life-dashboard-mcp:1.2.1

Run in a terminal.

jsonClaude Desktop

1{2  "mcpServers": {3    "io.github.owen282000-life-dashboard": {4      "command": "docker",5      "args": [6        "run",7        "-i",8        "--rm",9        "ghcr.io/owen282000/life-dashboard-mcp:1.2.1"10      ],11      "env": {12        "MCP_TRANSPORT": "<value>",13        "PGHOST": "<value>",14        "PGDATABASE": "<value>",15        "PGUSER": "<value>",16        "PGPASSWORD": "<secret>"17      }18    }19  }20}

claude_desktop_config.json

Local · ociPublisher installStep-by-step: add this in Claude

Remote URL or a command on your machine? How the two installs differ

Run on PlugMCP

Host a copy with our keys and logs.

A new server you create. It is not this listing's official endpoint. Use the publisher install when you want their URL and their credentials.

Launch

Server facts

Local

Transport: stdio
Version

Tools

No tool list yet. Remote servers get one after the first health check.

FAQ

Questions

It's for people who want their records in a database they can query, next to Home Assistant or instead of it. With a local model nothing leaves your machine. It's a one-person project offered as-is and built to be changed: the views, the dashboards and the receiver are yours to adapt.

What you get

Every record, checked and kept once. The receiver checks the HMAC signature and stores every record in Postgres. A payload that arrives twice is applied once, a late one can't overwrite a newer one, and records you delete on the phone are deleted here too.
One table, plain SQL views. All 33 record types of the Android app and the 28 of the iPhone app fit in one records table. The dash views turn them into days, nights, hours and apps in your time zone.
Six dashboards. An overview as the home page, then Activity, Sleep, Heart and body, Screen time, and Data and sync. Grafana reads as a user that can only SELECT.
Ask your own AI. An optional MCP server lets Claude, a local model in Ollama or any other MCP client answer questions such as "did I sleep better in the weeks I walked more?" from your own history, with read-only tools only. It stays off until you set a token.
Pairing with a QR code. The receiver shows a code that the app scans, so you type neither the address nor the secret.
Every phone in your household. Android phones and iPhones send to the same database, and each shows up as its own Phone in the dashboards.
Your data back out. A read-only JSON API for scripts, widgets and home screens, off until you set a token.
Images, not a build. Every part is an image on ghcr.io for amd64 and arm64 (so a Raspberry Pi with a 64-bit OS can run them), for Docker Compose or the Helm chart. Within a major version, nothing you build on changes.

How it works

The phone pushes signed JSON to you. There's no cloud account in between, so there's no login that expires, no token to refresh and no API that changes under you. views.md explains how records become days and nights, and compatibility.md lists what stays the same within a major version.

Part of Life Dashboard

Life Dashboard is four projects, and you only install the parts you need. Put the app on each phone, then pick where the data goes. Both apps send the same payload, so an Android phone and an iPhone can share one Home Assistant or one stack.

On Android, Google Play is the easy way: a one-time purchase, with automatic updates, that supports development. The same app stays free from GitHub, Obtainium and F-Droid, with the same signature. On an iPhone, the app is on the App Store. The data can also go to an MQTT broker or a webhook of your own instead. Both apps have that built in, for n8n, Node-RED or a script.

Quick start

You need Docker with Compose, or Podman, and a phone that can reach this machine (the same network, or a VPN). With a year of sample data for two phones (235,000 records), the stack used about 450 MB of memory while every dashboard loaded, 520 MB with the MCP server, and 530 MB on disk: 210 MB of data and 320 MB of Postgres write-ahead log. The images are about 650 MB to download, most of it Grafana. Pairing with a QR code needs the Android app 1.16.0 or the iPhone app 1.4.0 or newer.

Run the installer. It puts the release files in ./life-dashboard, writes .env with a random secret and passwords, starts the stack and shows the pairing code:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/owen282000/life-dashboard-stack/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

Prefer to read it first? Download it, read it, then run it:

curl -fsSLO https://github.com/owen282000/life-dashboard-stack/releases/latest/download/install.sh
less install.sh
sh install.sh

In the app, open the Webhook card on the Health tab, tap Scan a pairing code and scan the code in your terminal. Then tap Sync Now (on Android, on both tabs) and Backfill the last 90 days.
Open Grafana on port 3000 and log in as admin with GRAFANA_PASSWORD from life-dashboard/.env. The overview is the home page.

Something wrong? The same line with -s -- doctor checks the install and says what to fix. The setup guide has the installer's options, the install by hand, a NAS or Portainer, Podman, the pairing code, setting a phone up by hand and several phones.

Try it without a phone

The demo profile posts 60 days of made-up data for an Android phone and an iPhone through the real receiver. Run it in a folder of its own, under its own project name and ports, so it never touches your own data:

mkdir lifedash-demo && cd lifedash-demo
curl -fsSLO https://github.com/owen282000/life-dashboard-stack/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
printf '%s\n' "WEBHOOK_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)" GRAFANA_PASSWORD=demo-admin \
  GRAFANA_DB_PASSWORD=demo-ro DASH_DB_PASSWORD=demo-dash RECEIVER_PORT=18080 GRAFANA_PORT=13000 > .env
docker compose -p lifedash-demo --profile demo up -d

Then open http://localhost:13000 and log in as admin with the password demo-admin. A new stack starts only with a secret and passwords of its own, so the .env line gives the demo its own. Try it without a phone has the full steps and how to remove it again. To try the MCP server on the same made-up data, put MCP_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32) in front of the command and add --profile mcp, then connect your MCP client to http://localhost:8090/mcp with that token.

Dashboards

Every dashboard has a Phone picker at the top, and every panel an info icon that says where its figure comes from.

	Dashboard	What it answers
	Life Dashboard (overview, home)	How were today and last night, and how does this week compare with the four before it?
	Activity	Steps, distance and calories per day, steps by hour, and workout minutes per week next to the WHO guideline of 150.
	Sleep	Last night as a hypnogram, stages per night, bedtime and wake time, and the overnight low heart rate.
	Heart and body	Heart rate per hour, resting heart rate, HRV, SpO2, breathing rate and weight with its 7-day mean. Blood pressure, glucose, body composition and temperature sit in folded rows.
	Screen time	Minutes per day and per app, the top apps, and how long before sleep the phone was last used. Android only.
	Data and sync	When each phone last sent data, which types you have, how many records arrive per day, and why raw step records count a walk twice.

Days are local days in your time zone, a missing day is a gap rather than a zero, and nothing is scored as good or bad. The dashboards lists the rules behind every panel and how to make a copy of your own.

Ask your own AI (MCP)

MCP is the standard way for an AI model to call tools. The stack's optional MCP server gives the model you choose eight read-only tools on your history: list_phones, data_catalog, sync_status, daily_summary, sleep_nights, workouts, trend and screen_time. None of them writes or takes SQL, and the server reads as dash_ro, a user that can only read the dash views.

echo "MCP_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32)" >> .env
echo "COMPOSE_PROFILES=mcp" >> .env
docker compose up -d

Connect any MCP client to http://<this machine>:8090/mcp with the token, or let Claude Desktop start it over stdio. Then ask things like "how did my sleep change in the weeks I ran more?" or "which apps took most of my screen time last Sunday?".

The stack sends nothing to any AI by itself: with a local model everything stays on your hardware, and with a cloud model your questions and the results go to that provider. mcp.md has the setup for Claude Desktop, Open WebUI, LM Studio and a local model through Ollama, and the Helm chart runs the same server with mcp.enabled: true.

Write your own query

The dash views hold one row per day, night, hour or app, with local days already worked out:

-- Steps per day, counted once, for the phone labeled "pixel"
SELECT day, steps FROM dash.activity_days WHERE install = 'pixel' ORDER BY day DESC LIMIT 7;

-- Minutes per day in one app
SELECT day, minutes FROM dash.screen_apps WHERE app = 'YouTube' ORDER BY day DESC;

-- Last night's sleep
SELECT day, asleep_h, deep_h, rem_h FROM dash.sleep_nights ORDER BY day DESC LIMIT 1;

Run them with docker compose exec db psql -U lifedash, or in a Grafana panel of your own with the LifeDashboard Postgres data source. views.md lists every view, column and unit, and where to keep views of your own. The raw records are in records, as sent: the Android app's payload reference has every field, and the iOS payload page lists where an iPhone differs.

Read your data back

Set API_TOKEN and the receiver also answers a read-only JSON API under /api/: the phones, totals per day, nights, workouts, screen time, one metric per day, and a trend. api.md lists every endpoint with an example.

Kubernetes

A Helm chart runs the same images on a cluster of your own, with Postgres through CloudNativePG for replicas, failover and backups, as one bundled pod, or on a Postgres you already have. kubernetes.md covers installing, pairing, routes, backups, upgrades and GitOps.

Upgrading

Set LIFEDASH_VERSION in .env to a newer release, or to 1 to follow every 1.x release, then run docker compose pull && docker compose up -d. Coming from a version before 1.0.0, which ran Postgres 16? The database won't start until one script moves your data over: see Upgrading from a version before 1.0.0. A backup is one line: docker compose exec -T db pg_dump -U lifedash -Fc lifedash > lifedash-$(date +%F).dump. Backups covers restoring.

Tested on Docker 29 with Postgres 18.6 and Grafana 13.2.4. Versions are pinned in the images, Dependabot proposes updates, and each release publishes them as new images.

Exposing it safely

Set WEBHOOK_SECRET, so only your phones can send data. The receiver speaks plain HTTP, /pair shows the secret, and anyone who can open Grafana can read every record, so put a reverse proxy with TLS in front of the receiver only and keep Grafana on your own network or a VPN. Exposing it safely covers every point, from the pairing page behind a proxy to the database passwords.

Known gaps

Series the Android app sends per time window are stored, but only the heart rate panels read them so far, so leave Data Resolution on Every record, the default. Known gaps lists the rest.

Documentation

Get started: Setup guide · Try it without a phone · Kubernetes

Reference: SQL views · API · MCP server · What a version keeps stable · Helm chart

Project: Upgrades, backups and security · Build from source · Changelog · Releasing · Security policy

Help and contributing

Found a bug in the stack? Open an issue here. Questions about the apps go to the Android app's Discussions.

Pull requests are welcome. The receiver and the MCP server are Python, the views SQL, and Build from source builds the images from a clone and runs the tests.

Support the project

Stars, shares and good bug reports all help. This is a one-person project, but your setup doesn't depend on that person: there's no server of mine to switch off, your history lives in your own database, and the code is MIT. If you want to chip in for the evenings that go into it, there's Ko-fi. The stack stays free and open source either way.

MIT licensed. See LICENSE.