Switchboard

Every farm on Sporeline runs the same code. Where farms work differently, that difference is a farm setting with a default that keeps things the way they were. The Switchboard page puts all of those settings, and the few feature switches we use, on one screen so I can see how each farm is set up without opening farms one by one.

Who sees it

Only a SuperAdmin, which means Sporeline staff. It lives at Platform, Switchboard in the sidebar. Anyone else who opens the address gets an access denied message. Your farm’s own settings are on your Settings pages, and nothing on this page changes them.

What the page shows

Each row is one setting or switch. Each column after the first few is one farm, taken from the last farm count. The line under the title says how many settings, switches and farms there are and when the farms were counted.

The first columns describe the row:

• Setting: the key, its name and one line on what it does. A switch past its review date also shows Review due.
• Tier: core or optional (see below).
• Kind: setting for a farm setting, or the kind of switch.
• Who: the lowest role that can change it. For a farm setting that is usually a Manager or an Owner. Switches are changed by a SuperAdmin only.
• Default: what a farm gets if it never touches the setting.

A farm’s cell shows that farm’s value. Cells where the farm has changed the value from the default are highlighted, so the farms that work differently stand out. A cell that matches the default is plain.

Farms are read one at a time, so the columns fill in as each read comes back. If a farm can’t be read its cell says Could not read, and the farm’s column header has a Retry button.

The page is read-only

You can’t change a value here. To change one:

• A farm setting is changed by the farm on its own Settings pages, by whoever the Who column names.
• A feature switch is changed on that farm’s page under Platform, Tenants. Clicking a switch’s cell takes you there.

Core and optional

Every row is one of two kinds:

• Core: on for every farm. It is part of what Sporeline is.
• Optional: a permanent feature any farm can turn on in its own settings. It is off by default, so turning it on for one farm never changes what another farm sees. See Optional Features for how a farm turns one on.

Optional doesn’t mean paid or built for one customer. Plans limit how much a farm can do, not which features it gets. A feature switch is different again: it is temporary, has an owner and a review date, and comes out once the feature is settled.

The written list

The same rows, with who can change each one and where it shows up in the app, are in docs/switchboard.md in the code. That file is generated from the same list the page reads, so the two always agree.