At FOSS Asia 2026 (Mar 8-10, Bangkok), note 9:
Between talks and booths, I discovered two tools new to me.
Headlamp#
Headlamp is an open-source Kubernetes dashboard — a CNCF Sandbox project under kubernetes-sigs. It runs as a web app, desktop app, or both.
What caught my eye: its plugin system. The default Kubernetes dashboard gives you a fixed view. Headlamp lets developers extend it with custom plugins. The plugin API uses React and TypeScript with a simple registration model — scaffold a plugin, write a component, register it. Simple enough that building custom dashboard views with an AI coding agent looks practical.
If you want a Kubernetes UI beyond the basics without paying for Lens, Headlamp deserves a look.
prek#
prek is a drop-in replacement for pre-commit, rewritten in Rust. Single binary, no Python dependency, fully compatible with existing .pre-commit-config.yaml files.
Faster, lighter, and no Python required just to run git hooks. CPython, Apache Airflow, and FastAPI already use it. I plan to try it on my own repos.