Inventory system

[m]

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:16]
🌲 diamond (it/its): we lowkey need an inventory system so bad

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:16]
🌲 diamond (it/its): the wiki is kinda acting as half that rn

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:18]
🌲 diamond (it/its): it's there when you need to find something or wonder why things are missing

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:25]
🦉 Digger: we finally set up an inventory on the ship; the hard part is keeping it up

Tara, [05.07.2025 16:25]
the issue is not "where are things optimally" its "why do people not put things back"

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:26]
🌲 diamond (it/its): i dont think the "why do people not put things back" problem is any easier to solve than the inventory system problem

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:26]
🌲 diamond (it/its): (or forget solving, just improved)

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:27]
🌲 diamond (it/its): imo as far as the tool chest goes, things are already really good

Tara, [05.07.2025 16:27]
no it is 100% worse

Tara, [05.07.2025 16:28]
there was a couple months streak of me being there working on various shit 2-3 days of the week and the amount of basic tools displaced on the regular was crazy

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:29]
🌲 diamond (it/its): YEA

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:29]
🌼 nc kf/ka: i have just perused several open source inventory systems

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:29]
🌼 nc kf/ka: my vote would be for SNIPE-IT

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:29]
🌼 nc kf/ka: GLPI seems really big on graphs and i don't think we're big enough for that

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:30]
🌼 nc kf/ka: inventree just looks like not much thought was put into the UI

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:30]
🌲 diamond (it/its): wo they sponsor lets encrypt

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:30]
🌲 diamond (it/its): that's nuts

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:31]
🌼 nc kf/ka: it runs in PHP, which is unfortunate but there were no good options

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:31]
🌼 nc kf/ka: my concern overall would be that adding an inventory system adds overhead to inventory management

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:32]
🌼 nc kf/ka: if people aren't getting to the task of putting things back, i'm not sure we should place upon them the task of putting things back and logging it all (possibly in two or more steps)

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:34]
🌼 nc kf/ka: one possible way to placate this, if we decide it's an issue but still want an inventory system, is to use something homegrown, tiny, and extremely accessible

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:34]
🌼 nc kf/ka: which probably means building it into member services

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:35]
🌲 diamond (it/its): oh i meant to have it as more of a "what we should have" system, so basically only when people add new things to the space

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:35]
🌼 nc kf/ka: oh ok that's better

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:36]
🌲 diamond (it/its): so when people take things and it's not there, we can look at the list and decide if it's supposed to be there or not

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:36]
🌲 diamond (it/its): there's been like a few times where i felt gaslighted when a tool is just not at the space for multiple weeks and then all of a sudden it's there again and i'd go "huh?? we had these???"

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:37]
🌲 diamond (it/its): like omg the measuring tape

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:37]
🌼 nc kf/ka: ok ya

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:37]
🌼 nc kf/ka: i say either we put snipe-it up, or build something tiny into member services

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:43]
it’s ok it’ll be just like my work

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:43]
i also vote snipe i’ve messed with it before and it’ll generate barcodes you can put on things easily that map back to it in the ui

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:43]
can have owners/inventory/notes/etc

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:44]
any suggestions on a fun subdomain for it

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:44]
objectstorage.devhack.net

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:44]
idk

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:44]
inv.devhack.net
stuff.devhack.net
things.

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:45]
🦉 Digger: fwiw, i do return tools

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:47]
🌲 diamond (it/its): things. is nice

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:47]
🌲 diamond (it/its): idk who does or doesn't return tools, i just want to do this to make everyone's lives a bit less annoying when dealing w missing tools which is bound to happen and is imo normal

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:49]
🫒 Eliri SDH: Tiny QR codes to stick on things?

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:50]
🍌 lily: datamatrix

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:51]
yeah iirc it’ll do qrcodes or 2d

ellie, [05.07.2025 16:51]
but it’s been a couple years

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:52]
🫒 Eliri SDH: Backseat driving for a spell (aka, this is not a requirement, just recent personal musings on the subject) it should be something that’s easily scannable that leads to details about the object in question.

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:53]
🍌 lily: mm that’s fair

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:53]
🍌 lily: if space allows we should just write where the object belongs at a glance

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:53]
🫒 Eliri SDH: As always, I defer to those that are actually doing the work.

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:53]
🍌 lily: like just text and then the code

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:55]
🫒 Eliri SDH: Depends on the object, but these print pretty small text/images: ​https://www.brother-usa.com/products/vc500w

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:56]
🍌 lily: my other idea was to just systematically ID every storage space in the space and the label just straight up says where to put it

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:57]
🌲 diamond (it/its): that's ideal yea

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:57]
🍌 lily: like FNDRY-TLBX-CAB1 or something

Tara, [05.07.2025 16:57]
could use one of those handheld scanners

Tara, [05.07.2025 16:57]
they generally run android

Tara, [05.07.2025 16:57]
and then asset tag shit

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:58]
🌸 Willow ☭ (she/her): ohhh this is a good idea, then asset tag on top of that if keeping track is more important

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 16:58]
🍌 lily: yes exactly

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:00]
🌸 Willow ☭ (she/her): why not phone? so everyone immediately has access to one

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:00]
sure, they would have to be QRs though

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:00]
🌸 Willow ☭ (she/her): lower barrier to active participation

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:00]
🦝 erin "nepeat" computer breaker: if you don’t mind android 9/10

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:01]
i mean it just needs to be on a website

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:01]
🍌 lily: QRs are fine

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:01]
🍌 lily: can just link to a webpage

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:01]
🦝 erin "nepeat" computer breaker: the TC56 is still a modern powerhouse

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:01]
it doesn’t really need recent android

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:01]
🍌 lily: getting it small at scannable size might be annoying though

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:01]
it gets difficult to print qrs that are small, durable, and readable by a phone cam

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:01]
yeah

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:01]
plus placement

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:02]
🦝 erin "nepeat" computer breaker: maybe barcodes

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:02]
🦝 erin "nepeat" computer breaker: something like this

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:02]
nfc is also an option because then you can print like additions

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:02]
so like for a hammer you can print a little handle endcap and put the tag in there

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:02]
🌸 Willow ☭ (she/her): i mean. if it has a code written on it with a sensible naming scheme then like

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:02]
🌸 Willow ☭ (she/her): people can just take 5-10secs to type it in

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:03]
🍌 lily: i don’t wanna whip out my phone to scan an object to figure out where it goes

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:03]
🍌 lily: just pls write it on the object itself

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:03]
🦝 erin "nepeat" computer breaker: so maybe like this?

Tara, [05.07.2025 17:03]
anyways this still has the issue of like people not actually putting the shit back

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:03]
🌸 Willow ☭ (she/her): thats why labeling where stuff goes would help

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:04]
🍌 lily: at least they would know where to put it back if they are so inclined to!

matrix.devhack.net, [05.07.2025 17:04]
🍌 lily: (and possibly encourage them to do if they have a better idea of where it goes)

[m]

whatever we use should probably have support for additional custom fields to keep track of:

• provenance/ownership/what's on loan from ppl, what's "devhack's"
• crosslinks to wiki pages
• crosslinks to reciepts

what does the tool library use?

[m]

I think whatever system we come up with needs to have a single entrypoint that people can follow a workflow/choice tree to find where a given thing should go or where a given thing should be.

something like akinator though, I don't think we want to explicitly track every object. things should have vibes for locations.

"this looks like microelectronics but I don't know about microelectronics, so let me put it in the microelectronics dump bin"

"I know about microelectronics and I see something I know where it goes in the microeletronics dump bin, let me organize it"

"I'm looking for a specific microelectronic component but don't know the organization setup, is it intuitive enough physically or is there documentation about it"

"I am holding a thing that I don't know anything about. does it have a label on it that tells me vaguely where it is?"

"I have something that doesn't cleanly fit into any one organizational scheme, either anywhere or within a subset of one. what do I do with it? I don't want to spend time organizing creating new categories"

[m]

if theres ambiguity for where things go, maybe they should be able to go in both places? or the places should have documentation about resolving that ambiguity. or there is canonical preference and a person moves things that are mis-categorized.

[amber 💖]

here is m's take on the war on clutter: ​https://wiki.devhack.net/War_on_clutter
based on this, i've built a wiki page to document dump spots throughout the space: ​https://wiki.devhack.net/Dump_Spots

the current idea for tracking /dev/hack-owned stuff is to spray paint them with a green line.

do we actually want to build an inventory system separate from dump spots and spray painting things? if not then we can probably close out this ticket for now.