Certimate Overview

Relevant source files

• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/1-bug_report.yml
• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/2-feature_request.yml
• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/3-questions.yml
• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/config.yml
• .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
• .gitignore
• .vscode/extensions.json
• .vscode/settings.json
• CONTRIBUTING.md
• CONTRIBUTING_zh.md
• README.md
• README_zh.md
• go.mod
• go.sum
• internal/domain/access.go
• internal/domain/provider.go
• ui/.gitignore
• ui/dist/.gitkeep
• ui/prettier.config.mjs
• ui/src/components/access/AccessForm.tsx
• ui/src/components/access/forms/AccessConfigFieldsProvider.tsx
• ui/src/components/workflow/designer/NodeRenderContext.ts
• ui/src/components/workflow/designer/forms/BizDeployNodeConfigFieldsProvider.tsx
• ui/src/domain/access.ts
• ui/src/domain/provider.ts
• ui/src/i18n/resources/en/nls.access.json
• ui/src/i18n/resources/en/nls.provider.json
• ui/src/i18n/resources/en/nls.workflow.nodes.json
• ui/src/i18n/resources/zh/nls.access.json
• ui/src/i18n/resources/zh/nls.provider.json
• ui/src/i18n/resources/zh/nls.workflow.nodes.json

Certimate is an open-source, self-hosted SSL certificate management tool designed to automate the entire lifecycle of ACME certificates—from issuance and renewal to deployment and monitoring—through a visual interface. It is built as a lightweight, single-binary application with zero external dependencies, making it suitable for environments ranging from home servers to enterprise clusters README.md28-36

Key Features

• Visual Workflow Orchestration: Automate certificate application and deployment via a graphical node-based editor README.md36-40
• Broad Provider Support: Integrates with over 80 DNS providers for ACME challenges and 150+ deployment targets including CDN, WAF, and Kubernetes README.md44-45
• Self-Hosted & Private: All data is stored locally in an embedded database (PocketBase/SQLite), ensuring full control over sensitive credentials README.md32
• Resource Efficient: Written in Go and React, requiring approximately 16MB of memory README.md35
• Multi-CA Support: Compatible with Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL, Google Trust Services, SSL.com, Actalis, and other ACME-compliant CAs README.md47

System Architecture

Certimate is a monolithic application that embeds both the backend logic and the frontend assets into a single executable. It leverages PocketBase as its core framework for database management, authentication, and internal event hooks go.mod61

High-Level Architecture Diagram

The following diagram illustrates the relationship between the React user interface, the Go backend service, and external providers.

Sources: README.md28-48 go.mod46 go.mod61

Key Concepts & Subsystems

1. Workflow Engine

The core of Certimate is its workflow engine. Users define "Workflows" consisting of nodes such as apply (issuance), deploy (distribution), and notify (alerts) ui/src/i18n/resources/en/nls.workflow.nodes.json63-70

• Execution Strategy: The engine supports flexible execution strategies, including skipping if the certificate is still valid or if the last run succeeded ui/src/i18n/resources/en/nls.workflow.nodes.json82-85
• Node Types: Includes logic nodes like condition, tryCatch, and delay to handle complex deployment scenarios ui/src/i18n/resources/en/nls.workflow.nodes.json4-8
• Isolation: ACME certificate requests are executed in isolated processes to ensure stability and avoid dependency conflicts.

2. Access & Provider System

Credentials for third-party services are stored as Access records. These records encapsulate the API keys, tokens, or SSH secrets required to interact with external providers internal/domain/access.go9-16

• Provider Types: Providers are categorized into dns, hosting, ca, and notification ui/src/domain/provider.ts145-152
• Configuration: Each provider has a specific configuration structure, such as AccessConfigForAliyun internal/domain/access.go68-72 or AccessConfigForAWS internal/domain/access.go84-87

3. Data Persistence

Certimate uses PocketBase's underlying SQLite storage. The schema is organized into several key collections:

• access: Storage for provider credentials internal/domain/access.go7
• certificate: Metadata and content of issued certificates.
• workflow & workflow_run: Definitions and execution history.
• workflow_output & workflow_logs: Execution artifacts and detailed logs.

4. Code Entity Mapping

The following diagram bridges the conceptual subsystems to the actual code entities and domain models used in the project.

Sources: internal/domain/access.go9-16 internal/domain/provider.go15-115 ui/src/domain/provider.ts145-156 ui/src/i18n/resources/en/nls.workflow.nodes.json29-65

Detailed Documentation Sections

For more in-depth technical details, please refer to the following child pages:

Getting Started & Deployment

Covers the initial setup using the binary serve command, Docker deployment options README.md69-76 and default administrator credentials (admin@certimate.fun / 1234567890) README.md83-86 For details, see Getting Started & Deployment.

Core Concepts & Terminology

Provides a glossary and deep dive into the domain vocabulary: Access, Provider, Workflow, Node, and WorkflowRun. It explains the ACME mechanisms like DNS-01 and HTTP-01 challenges ui/src/i18n/resources/en/nls.workflow.nodes.json129-137 and the variety of supported CAs and notification channels README.md40-47 For details, see Core Concepts & Terminology.