/unifi-context-map

name: unifi-context-map
description: >-
  Use when an agent keeps guessing wrong about a UniFi network, when starting
  recurring agent work against a gateway, or when asked to "map my network",
  "document my UniFi setup", "build a network inventory", "what's on my
  network", "why does the agent keep using the wrong AP", or "audit my
  reservations against reality". Covers writing and maintaining the site map
  file: networks, devices, SSIDs, reservations, zones, an append-only Gotchas
  list, provenance checks that keep it honest, and the security rules for a file
  that is a burglary aid if it leaks. Assumes unifi-connect. Not for making
  changes to any of it (unifi-firewall, unifi-wifi, unifi-clients).
compatibility: Any UniFi gateway reachable per unifi-connect.

UniFi Context Map

This repo deliberately ships no network inventory, because the useful one is yours. This skill is how the agent builds it.

An agent working a UniFi network without a map guesses: which AP is the one in the back bedroom, whether `10.x.x.50` is the NAS or a decommissioned print server, whether that camera reservation reflects where the camera actually is. UniFi answers with MAC addresses and machine names, and it is confidently wrong in a specific way: **the config is not the operational reality.** A reservation exists whether or not the device honors it. A port override is stored whether or not the hardware enforces it.

One markdown file, one human pass, fixes this.

Read this before you write anything down

**A complete UniFi map is a burglary aid.** Not being dramatic: assembled in one file it contains camera names and their physical placements, which cameras are on which segment, your WAN address, the MAC address of every device in the building, your alarm panel's IP, and which SSID is the trusted one. That is a casing document with a network diagram attached.

So, before the first line:

• **Never commit it to a public repo.** Not "scrub it later". Git history is

forever and the scrub is always harder than you think.

• **`.gitignore` it by name** in whatever repo you do network work from. A

suggested pattern is in this repo's `.gitignore`.

• **Never paste it into a shared or third-party context** you do not control.
• **The API key never goes in it.** Env var, always, same as `unifi-connect`.
• If you do keep it in a repo, keep that repo private, and assume any file an

agent reads freely is a file that can end up somewhere you did not intend.

This warning exists because the private skill this repo was distilled from could not be published as-written. Roughly seventy percent of it was exactly the inventory described above.

Where to keep it

Wherever your agent reads context from and nowhere else: the private repo you do network work from, or a local notes directory. Keep it in one place so there is one thing to protect.

Skeleton

Every section dated. The date is what tells a future agent how much to trust it.

# <Site> network map (snapshot YYYY-MM-DD)

## Gateway
- Host: <UDM_HOST>, web UI https://<UDM_HOST>
- Model, UniFi OS version, Network controller version
- Auth: X-API-Key, key name "agent", stored in env var; NOT in this file
- SSH: open/closed

## Networks and VLANs (as of YYYY-MM-DD)
| Name | Purpose | VLAN | Subnet | DHCP |

## Firewall zones (as of YYYY-MM-DD)
- Zone name, id, and in one line what it is allowed to reach
- Which networks belong to it

## Devices (as of YYYY-MM-DD)
| Name | Type | Model | IP | Firmware |
- Flag which have DHCP reservations and which hold dynamic leases:
  the dynamic ones drift, so pull `devices` before targeting one

## SSIDs (as of YYYY-MM-DD)
| SSID | Band | Security | Network | Enabled |

## Reservations (as of YYYY-MM-DD, N total)
| Name | IP | MAC |

## Port forwards (as of YYYY-MM-DD)
| Name | Protocol | External port | Destination |

## Reservation vs reality
The section that earns the file. See below.

## Gotchas (append-only, dated)
- YYYY-MM-DD: <thing that cost you an hour>

Building the inventory

The commands produce candidates. The human pass produces meaning.

udm networks --json | python3 -c '
import json,sys
for n in json.load(sys.stdin):
    print(n.get("name"), n.get("vlan","-"), n.get("ip_subnet"))'

udm devices --json | python3 -c '
import json,sys
for d in json.load(sys.stdin):
    print(d.get("name"), d.get("type"), d.get("model"), d.get("ip"), d.get("version"))'

udm wlans --json | python3 -c '
import json,sys
for w in json.load(sys.stdin):
    print(w.get("name"), w.get("enabled"), w.get("security"))'

udm reservations --json | python3 -c '
import json,sys
r=json.load(sys.stdin); print(len(r),"reservations")
for u in r: print(" ", u.get("name") or u.get("hostname"), u.get("fixed_ip"))'

udm zones --json | python3 -c '
import json,sys
for z in json.load(sys.stdin): print(z.get("_id"), z.get("name"))'

udm portforward --json | python3 -c '
import json,sys
for p in json.load(sys.stdin):
    print(p.get("name"), p.get("dst_port"), "->", p.get("fwd"), p.get("fwd_port"))'

What no query can tell you is that the AP named `U7PG2-a3f4` is the one in the back bedroom, or that a given reservation belongs to hardware you threw out in 2023. Do that pass once, write it down, mark it verified.

Reservation vs reality

Give this its own section. It is the highest-value thing in the file and it is never what you expect.

A DHCP reservation applies only if the device asks that DHCP server. Devices that join over a different SSID, sit behind an unmanaged switch, or were re-cabled at some point get an address from wherever they actually are, and the reservation sits dormant looking authoritative. In one real audit, of seven cameras with reservations on a dedicated camera VLAN, exactly **one** was actually on it. The rest had joined over Wi-Fi to an IoT SSID and held dynamic leases on a completely different subnet. Every one of them looked correctly segmented in the reservation table.

Chec