#Product overview
#Purpose
V8 Central lets a customer manage many ServerAvatar servers from one account, share them with a team, and pay for it. It replaces the V7 dashboard. The big change is that each server now runs the OSS panel instead of the V7 agent, and Central talks to that panel's API. V8 requirement
The V8 doc's main goal: existing V7 features and workflows keep working, so existing users can move to V8 without losing functionality, while V8 gets a new codebase, database and API (rules R1, R2). V8 requirement
#Core platform
| Area | What it does | Source status |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | Register, verify email, login (email + Google/GitHub), 2FA, IP whitelist, reset password, logout, tokens | V8 requirement Phase 2 requirements complete |
| Account | Profile, change email/password, 2FA setup, IP whitelist, login history, sessions, API access, notification channels | V8 requirement Phase 3 requirements complete |
| Organizations | The tenant: owns servers, members, roles, providers, audit log | V7 only behaviour known · V8 phase not written Missing |
| Plans | What can be bought: tier, cycle, limits, features | V7 only hard-coded in V7 · V8 not written Missing |
| Subscriptions | The active relationship between an account/organization and a plan | V7 only · Conflict user vs organization |
| Billing | Wallet credits, top-ups, gateways, invoices, auto-recharge, usage charges | V7 only · V8 "own phase" Missing |
| Roles & permissions | Owner/Admin system roles + custom roles, permission matrix | V7 only boolean grants · OSS has none/view/manage Conflict |
| Members | Invite by email, roles, remove | V7 only |
| Dashboard | High-level overview across servers, plan usage, spend, activity | Demo UI only concept · data APIs Missing |
| Servers | Connect an existing OSS server with its Central key, list it, open its details | OSS API connection exists · Central side Missing |
| Providers | Connect cloud accounts, create a VPS, install OSS, connect it | V7 only provider APIs · OSS installer accepts CENTRAL_TOKEN OSS API |
| Blueprints | Saved WordPress setups applied to a site | V7 only storage · OSS API Central-only wordpress/blueprint run |
| Audit log | Who did what, where, when | V7 only activities · Missing in V8 |
#Main navigation
Account pages (profile, security, notifications, API access) are reached from the user menu, not the sidebar. See Navigation.
#What is not a primary module
Applications, databases and backups are not top-level Central modules. In V7 they were organization-wide lists. In V8 they live on each server's OSS panel, so Central shows them inside Server Details (/servers/:id/applications and so on), loaded live from that server's OSS API. V8 requirement R5 · OSS API
Server Details areas, only where the OSS API supports them (OSS API, checked in API_REFERENCE.md):
- Overview (facts, live metrics, 24-hour history, processes)
- Applications (and per-app areas)
- Databases
- System users
- Services
- Optional / later: firewall, cron jobs, backups, PHP, Node.js, Fail2ban, settings, logs, disk cleaner
#Product philosophy (from ServerAvatar)
- Organization first. Everything a team shares (servers, providers, members, roles, audit) belongs to an organization. The user switches organization, and the whole app follows. V7 only
- Plans are relationships, not price cards. A user/organization has a subscription to a plan, and the plan's limits (servers, applications) are compared with actual usage. V7 only
- Prepaid credit model. V7 is wallet-based: money goes into credits, and plans and usage are deducted from them. V7 only Whether V8 keeps this is an open question.
- Backend is the authority. Prices, limits, features, permissions and payment success always come from the backend. The frontend never decides them.
- Central stores the minimum. Server and application data stay on the server. V8 requirement R5
#Out of scope for this spec
Only the AI assistant is still out of scope. Everything else on this list has been resolved, the last two on 2026-10-08: support tickets are cancelled — not deferred, not in V8 at all — and affiliate / referral now has backend Phase 18, which splits it in two: the referral programme is Central's (link, credit rewards, a page), while the affiliate programme runs in Tolt outside Central, so Central builds no affiliate screen at all (FE: Referral & Affiliate). Self-hosted licences left this list on 2026-10-07 too — backend Phase 15 writes them up as the Reseller panel: a lifetime licence and a panel Central installs on the reseller's own server (FE: Reseller panel). The managed-services pack left it the same day — backend Phase 14 writes it up as Premium Hosting Care: a Slack support channel plus per-app uptime monitoring, bought per account (FE: Premium Hosting Care). Log Monitoring left it the same day — backend Phase 13 writes it up as reports inside Central, dropping V7's separate InsightHub app: see FE: Log Monitoring. White label left it on 2026-10-06 — backend Phase 12 writes it up, together with V7's Control Panel, which turns out to need no add-on at all: see FE: Control Panel & White label. They're listed under Open questions so they aren't forgotten.