portainer-core/PROJECT_CLAUDIFICATION_HANDOVER.md

Tatlock Claudification Handover - portainer-core

Context

Tatlock (the butler) is being upgraded to use Claude as its primary LLM backend instead of Ollama. This requires infrastructure changes to support the new configuration.

Parent Issue: See /mnt/media/Projects/tatlock/PROJECT_CLAUDIFICATION.md

Impact on portainer-core

Portainer-core manages Docker Swarm stacks. The Tatlock stack needs updated configuration.

Required Changes

Priority: High (Required for Claude backend)

• Update stacks/agents.yml (or wherever Tatlock is defined)

  Add new environment variables:

  services:
    tatlock:
      environment:
        # Anthropic Configuration (Claude - preferred backend)
        - ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}
        - ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-20250514
        - PREFER_CLOUD_BACKEND=true
        # Existing Ollama config remains as fallback
        - OLLAMA_HOST=http://ollama:11434
        - OLLAMA_DEFAULT_MODEL=mistral-nemo:latest
  

• Configure secrets management

  Options:

  1. Docker secrets (recommended for Swarm):

     secrets:
       anthropic_api_key:
         external: true
     services:
       tatlock:
         secrets:
           - anthropic_api_key
         environment:
           - ANTHROPIC_API_KEY_FILE=/run/secrets/anthropic_api_key
     

  2. Environment file (simpler but less secure):

     services:
       tatlock:
         env_file:
           - ./secrets/tatlock.env
     

• Update CONTAINERS.md

  • Document new environment variables
  • Note Claude as preferred backend with Ollama fallback
  • Update any API documentation

Priority: Medium (Phase 2 - MCP Server)

• Add tatlock-mcp service definition (when Phase 2 is ready)

  tatlock-mcp:
    image: git.schweitz.net/jpmschweitzer/tatlock:latest
    command: ["python", "-m", "src.mcp.server"]
    ports:
      - "8778:8778"
    environment:
      - MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=${MCP_AUTH_TOKEN}
    # ... other config
  

Priority: Low (Optimization)

• Review resource limits
  • Claude backend may have different resource profile than Ollama
  • Monitor memory/CPU after deployment
  • Adjust limits if needed

Testing

After stack update:

# Check Tatlock logs for backend selection
docker service logs tatlock_tatlock 2>&1 | grep -E "claude|backend"

# Should see:
# model_backend_configured backend=claude model=claude-sonnet-4-20250514
# OR (if no API key):
# claude_health_check_skipped reason=no_api_key
# model_backend_configured backend=ollama

Timeline

• Blocking: Yes - required for production Claude deployment
• When to implement: When ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is available
• Effort: ~1 hour for stack updates, ~30 min for secrets setup