Services

SkyPortal runs as a set of supervised background processes. On make run, every directory under services.paths (baselayer/services/ and services/, plus any external service you cloned) becomes a supervisor program.

Disabling services

Everything runs by default. Name what you do not want in your config.yaml:

services:
  disabled:
    - dask
    - slack

Or invert the choice, turning everything off and naming what to run:

services:
  disabled: "*"
  enabled:
    - app
    - nginx

A name matching no service is ignored silently, so check the spelling below when a service you meant to disable keeps starting.

Most services already sleep when the feature they serve is unconfigured, so disabling them saves a process and its database connections, not CPU. The ones worth listing are those that poll for something you do not use.

baselayer services

| Service | Role | Disable | | ——————- | —————————————————————————– | —————————————— | | app | Tornado backends serving the API and the frontend, server.processes of them | Required | | nginx | Reverse proxy in front of the app processes | Required | | migration_manager | Applies alembic migrations at startup, then answers readiness checks | Required | | message_proxy | ZeroMQ proxy carrying internal messages to websocket_server | Required | | websocket_server | Pushes live updates to open browsers | Required | | status_server | Serves the “being provisioned” page until the app answers | Never, it only serves the boot page | | cron | Runs the jobs declared under cron in the config | No jobs declared | | external_logging | Tails the logs and forwards them to a remote syslog | Not shipping logs | | fake_oauth2 | Stub Google OAuth provider for server.auth.debug_login | Real OAuth | | rspack | Watches the frontend sources and rebuilds the bundle | Production, where the bundle is built once | | dask | Scheduler and four workers that nothing in SkyPortal connects to | Always, disabled by default |

SkyPortal services

| Service | Role | Disable | | ———————————- | ————————————————————————————— | ————————————————- | | health_monitor | Polls each app process and restarts the ones that stop answering | Supervising the processes yourself | | pgbouncer | Bundled connection pooler | Already inert without database.pooler.enabled | | notification_queue | Delivers user notifications (email, SMS, Slack, push) | Never, notifications stop being delivered | | facility_queue | Submits and polls follow-up requests to observing facilities | No follow-up | | observation_plan_queue | Builds and submits the observation plans of the MMA workflow | No MMA | | recurring_apis | Calls the RecurringAPI records users created | Feature unused | | reminders | Delivers the reminders users set on sources, GCN events and shifts | Feature unused | | thumbnail_queue | Fetches SDSS/LS/PS1 cutouts for new objects | No outbound network | | tns_retrieval_queue | Matches your objects against TNS reports | Idles without app.tns.* | | sharing_service_submission_queue | Submits sources to TNS and Hermes for the sharing services | No sharing service | | jpl_sbident_queue | Answers “is this a known minor planet?” through JPL SBIdent | Feature unused | | gcn_service | Consumes GCN Kafka notices | Idles without gcn.client_id/gcn.client_secret | | gcn_crossmatch | Crossmatches GCN alerts against sources, see GCN crossmatch | Idles without gcn_crossmatch.enabled | | ep_service | Ingests candidates from the proprietary Einstein Probe feed | Idles without einstein_probe.enabled | | scout_service | Consumes the JPL Scout NEO ToO Kafka stream | Idles without scout.* | | neofixer_service | Polls NEOFixer target lists and annotates solar system objects | Idles without neofixer.enabled | | tess_sector | Loads TESS sector footprints and annotates coverage | Idles without tess.enabled | | broker_ingest | Runs the ingestion loop of each active broker, see broker ingestion | Idles without brokers.ingest_enabled | | hermes_skyportal_sync | Consumes the Hermes Kafka topic into sources and photometry | Idles without app.hermes.sync.* | | pdl_service | Watches a PDL receiver directory and ingests earthquake QuakeML | No PDL client feeding it | | slack | Proxies Slack notifications so the token stays server-side | No Slack integration | | assistant | Answers posted assistant messages through the MCP endpoint | No app.assistant configured | | openai_analysis_service | Analysis backend: LLM summaries and embeddings | No AnalysisService record points at it | | sn_analysis_service | Analysis backend: supernova light curve fitting | No AnalysisService record points at it | | ngsf_analysis_service | Analysis backend: NGSF spectral fitting | No AnalysisService record points at it | | spectral_cube_analysis_service | Analysis backend: spectral cube extraction | No AnalysisService record points at it |