[Announce] CustomAppGateway (CAG) – Solving the "Chicken & Egg" for Custom Apps
Hi everyone,
I'm excited to share a new project that I hope will be a valuable addition to our ecosystem: CustomAppGateway (CAG).
Available now at CAG Website
The "Chicken & Egg" Problem
For a while now, I've been working on CCAI and then CCAI-P (Cloudron Custom App Installer - Personal), a tool designed to be the primary "Install UI" for custom apps. It empowers you to easily install packaged custom apps that aren't yet in the official store.
However, there is a catch-22: How do you install the installer (CCAI-P) without using the CLI ?
Enter CustomAppGateway (CAG)
CustomAppGateway is the solution to that problem. It is a specialized, lightweight run-once tool designed solely to deploy CCAI-P to your Cloudron instance securely and easily.
It provides three simple methods:
- CAG Online (Hosted): A web-based installer that runs securely in your browser (using a proxy to handle CORS, with tokens processed in memory only).
- CAG Web (self-hosted) : same as above but made easy to deploy to your own server.
- CAG App (Downloaded): A standalone terminal executable for Mac, Windows, and Linux for those who prefer a local utility.
AppStore Independence
CAG and CCAI-P are about AppStore Independence. You are not reliant on waiting for an app to be officially adopted or packaged by the Cloudron team to use it, if you need it NOW.
That said, the Cloudron App Store remains vital. It provides the seamless, tested update mechanism we all rely on. While custom apps give us freedom and immediacy, the App Store is still the gold standard for long-term maintenance and stability.
Updates & Housekeeping
- CCAI-P is now the primary interface for installing custom apps and will receive further updates and improvements.
- The old CCAI open hosted version is effectively deprecated and will be archived/deleted. I encourage everyone to switch to using CCAI-P.
Security
A hot topic which I’ve taken seriously.
CAG leverages the excellent security baked into the Cloudron platform.
We focus on :
- using a dedicated one-time token which you create and subsequently delete
- restricting the token to use only on your IP address
The footprint for attack is tiny.
A Note to the Cloudron Team
I want to extend a huge and ongoing thank you to the Cloudron team for their continued, tireless efforts. Cloudron remains the #1 self-hosting platform because of your hard work.
We know you face time and effort constraints with a small team. My hope is that CustomAppGateway and CCAI-P can ease your burden a little by empowering the community to self-service their custom app needs, allowing you to focus on the core platform and official apps.
Where to get it
CAG Website
Status
- hosted installer : zero setup : tested
- web installer : private setup : tested
- desktop installer : minimal setup : tested on MacOS
- TODO :
- test desktop installer on Windows
- test desktop installer on Linux
Feedback is always welcome!
And in doing so, please cut me some slack - it's a ground-breaking project, and as such may have some gremlins for a short (hopefully) while.