I’ve written before about how much I enjoy self-hosting services at home. If you’re curious, here’s my earlier post where I walk through some of the things I run locally: https://jimiz.net/selfhosting/
Since then… the list has only grown.
Recently, as I’ve been experimenting more with AI tools — especially Claude and Claude Code — I realized something was missing from my setup.
I wanted a local Git service that I could use internally instead of relying on GitHub.
Two reasons pushed me in this direction:
- Keeping my Docker and infrastructure configs versioned locally
- Supporting some experimentation with tools like OpenClaw (more on that later)
So I decided to deploy Gitea.
The Broken Doorbell Problem
At our house we have a Unifi G5 Pro doorbell camera. Normally when someone rings the doorbell:
- Home Assistant detects the event
- Alexa devices announce
- “Someone is at the front door”
Simple. Helpful. Works great. Except… it stopped working.
My family noticed immediately.
Apparently, the doorbell announcing visitors is considered mission-critical infrastructure in our house.
The root cause turned out to be:
- Amazon 2FA changes
- Several Home Assistant updates I had missed
- Some stale integrations
In other words…
A configuration nightmare waiting to happen.
How I Would Have Fixed This Before
Normally I would:
- SSH into the server
- Check logs
- Look through configs
- Search forums
- Try fixes
- Break things
- Undo fixes
- Eventually get it working
I actually enjoy this process.
But realistically, it usually takes hours of tinkering and discovery.
How I Fixed It This Time
Instead of doing it the traditional way, I decided to approach it the same way I would solve a problem at work. I connected Claude Code to my Docker server via SSH.
Then I had a conversation with it while debugging the issue.
Claude walked through:
- Checking Home Assistant logs
- Reviewing integration configs
- Identifying the Amazon authentication issue
- Updating the relevant components
Total time to restore the doorbell announcement: About 10 minutes.
While I Was There…
Once everything was working again, I kept going. I deployed Gitea, a lightweight self-hosted Git service.
Then I:
- Added my Docker configurations
- Versioned my Home Assistant configs
- Set up backups to my NAS
All of that took about another 30 minutes. Previously that would have been an afternoon project.
AI has completely changed how I approach debugging and infrastructure work.
Instead of putting off fixes because they might take hours, I just jump in and solve them.
Problems that I would have ignored before are now 10–30 minute tasks.
What Problems are you solving with AI?