> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.techulus.cloud/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> What the agent does, node types, and how it communicates with the control plane.

The agent is a lightweight Go binary that runs on every server in your cluster. It polls the control plane for expected state and reconciles containers, networking, and routing automatically.

## Node Types

Each agent runs in one of two modes:

| Type   | Flag      | Traefik | Description                    |
| ------ | --------- | ------- | ------------------------------ |
| Worker | Default   | No      | Runs containers only           |
| Proxy  | `--proxy` | Yes     | Handles TLS and public traffic |

### Proxy Node

* Runs Traefik for TLS termination.
* Receives Traefik routes from the control plane.
* Handles public traffic and routes requests to containers over WireGuard.
* Collects and ships Traefik access logs.

### Worker Node

* Does not run Traefik.
* Receives empty Traefik route sets from the control plane.
* Skips Traefik-related drift detection and reconciliation.
* Keeps a lighter runtime footprint focused on container workloads.

## Container Labels

The agent tracks managed containers with Podman labels:

| Label                    | Description                         |
| ------------------------ | ----------------------------------- |
| `techulus.deployment.id` | Links the container to a deployment |
| `techulus.service.id`    | Links the container to a service    |
| `techulus.service.name`  | Human-readable service name         |

Containers without `techulus.deployment.id` are treated as orphans and cleaned up.

## Command Line Flags

| Flag              | Default  | Description                               |
| ----------------- | -------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| `--url`           | Required | Control plane URL                         |
| `--token`         | Empty    | Registration token, required on first run |
| `--logs-endpoint` | Empty    | VictoriaLogs endpoint for log shipping    |
| `--proxy`         | `false`  | Run as a proxy node                       |