BenchChef

WORK IN PROGRESS

BenchChef is a performance supervision and benchmark workbench for SpaghettiChef.

BenchChef observes, measures, and analyzes a running SpaghettiChef instance from the outside, while keeping SpaghettiChef lightweight and focused on printer, camera, dashboard, and engine execution.

Purpose

BenchChef focuses on:

• backend API performance
• frontend/dashboard responsiveness
• benchmark execution
• latency measurement
• throughput measurement
• availability monitoring
• observability dashboards
• technical reporting
• performance supervision workflows

BenchChef intentionally does not replace SpaghettiChef.

SpaghettiChef performs the work.
BenchChef observes the work.

Related Project

BenchChef is designed to work with SpaghettiChef.

Related repository:

SpaghettiChef on GitHub

SpaghettiChef is the operational runtime responsible for:

• printer runtime
• camera runtime
• dashboard and REST API
• engine execution
• image capture and processing

BenchChef is the complementary supervision and benchmark layer.

Technology Stack

flowchart LR

    SC[SpaghettiChef<br/>Operational Runtime]

    subgraph BC[BenchChef]
        ANG[Angular<br/>Frontend Workbench UI]
        DJ[Django + DRF<br/>Backend Orchestration]
        PROM[Prometheus<br/>Metric Collection]
        GRAF[Grafana<br/>Observability Dashboards]
    end

    DOCKER[Docker Compose<br/>Local Stack Orchestration]

    ANG --> DJ
    DJ --> SC
    PROM --> DJ
    GRAF --> PROM

    DOCKER --> ANG
    DOCKER --> DJ
    DOCKER --> PROM
    DOCKER --> GRAF

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Architecture

BenchChef
├── frontend-angular/   Angular frontend workbench
├── backend-django/     Django backend API and orchestration
├── prometheus/         Prometheus configuration
├── grafana/            Grafana dashboards and provisioning
├── scenarios/          Benchmark scenario definitions
├── reports/            Generated benchmark reports
└── docs/               Documentation

Implementation Status

Version	Status	Goal
0.1.x	DONE	Project foundation
0.2.x	DONE	Django backend foundation
0.3.x	DONE	SpaghettiChef connection layer
0.4.x	DONE	Black-box performance probes
0.5.x	DONE	Prometheus integration
0.6.x	DONE	First Grafana dashboard
0.7.x	DONE	External system metrics
0.8.x	DONE	Full Grafana observability dashboards
0.9.x	IN PROGRESS	Angular workbench UI
0.10.x	IN PROGRESS	Release packaging and remote install
0.11.x	PLANNED	Benchmark scenario runner
1.0.x	PLANNED	BenchChef Central sync boundary
1.1.x	PLANNED	BenchChef Central backend
1.2.x	PLANNED	BenchChef Central dashboards
2.0.x	PLANNED	Reports and release workflow
2.1.x	PLANNED	Support reports and PDF export
3.0.x	PLANNED	Kotlin REST client
3.1.x	PLANNED	Android support client

Detailed roadmap: docs/roadmap.md.

Local Development

BenchChef can be started with helper scripts. Create a ".env" file (use .env.example), modify ports if necessary : By default, BenchChef expects SpaghettiChef to already be reachable at:

SPAGHETTICHEF_BASE_URL=http://localhost:18080

BenchChef does not start SpaghettiChef. The start script checks the configured URL and warns if SpaghettiChef is unavailable; BenchChef still starts so probes can be launched after SpaghettiChef comes online.

Start the local stack:

./scripts/start.sh

This starts:

BenchChef Django backend
BenchChef Angular frontend
Prometheus
Grafana
node_exporter
process-exporter
optional diagnostics loop

Open:

BenchChef Angular  http://localhost:18072
BenchChef Backend  http://localhost:18071
Prometheus         http://localhost:18073
Grafana            http://localhost:18074
node_exporter      http://localhost:18075/metrics
process-exporter   http://localhost:18076/metrics

Default Grafana login:

user: admin
password: admin

Check running processes:

./scripts/ps.sh

Check stored process ids:

./scripts/pid.sh

Stop the local stack:

./scripts/stop.sh

Useful Prometheus Queries

benchchef_probe_requests_total
benchchef_probe_failures_total
benchchef_probe_duration_seconds
benchchef_probe_http_status_total
benchchef_probe_timeout_total
benchchef_spaghettichef_up
node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes
rate(namedprocess_namegroup_cpu_seconds_total[5m])

Grafana

Grafana is provisioned automatically.

Datasource:

Prometheus

Dashboard:

BenchChef First Dashboard
BenchChef Observability 0.8

The dashboard uses BenchChef metrics exported by Django and scraped by Prometheus.

To generate data for the dashboard, run diagnostics and dashboard responsiveness probes as described in docs/grafana.md.

Documentation

• Installation and Operation
• Smoke Tests
• SpaghettiChef Compatibility
• Metrics Overview
• Grafana Integration
• External System Metrics
• Remote Install
• Roadmap
• Version TODOs

License

BenchChef is distributed under the terms of the MIT License.