CableGUI/README.md

mCables

Cable management for m's setup — visual interface + SQLite inventory, generating + updating Excalidraw diagrams via mExDraw.

Status

Bootstrap. Architecture sketch below; implementation pending.

Goal

Track devices, ports, and cables across m's setups (server rack, office, living room). Generate / update Excalidraw diagrams from the inventory. Detect bundles of parallel cables. Visualise cable types by colour (RJ45, DP, HDMI, USB, Power, …).

m's existing drawing is the seed: https://mxdrw.msbls.de/draw/Cable-Management.excalidraw — devices are rectangles, ports are ellipses positioned on the device, cables are arrows from port to port, cable type is encoded via colour with a legend.

Architecture sketch

Layer	Tech	Role
Storage	SQLite (~/.m/mcables.db)	devices, ports, cables, cable_types, bundles, frames
Backend	Go	HTTP API serving the visual frontend, mExDraw integration for diagram I/O
Frontend	Visual web UI	Browser-based editor (no CLI). Add/edit devices and cables, see live preview
Output	mExDraw via MCP	Render + update Excalidraw drawings
Project tracking	mBrian topic-mcables	Decisions, status, links to drawings — not the data itself

Tech decisions (open)

• Frontend stack — vanilla TS + small UI lib, or a framework (Svelte / Preact)?
• Diagram import from the existing Cable-Management.excalidraw — one-shot migration script that parses bindings → DB rows.
• Layout algorithm for bundle suggestions — parallel cables along the same path get bundled visually.

These get resolved in the first design pass.

Refs

• m's seed drawing: https://mxdrw.msbls.de/draw/Cable-Management.excalidraw
• mExDraw MCP: mcp__mexdraw__*
• Related: mBrian topic-msbls (infrastructure inventory)