Alright, so about Hawk Season 3. It felt like time, you know? Season 2 was alright, did its job mostly, but things were getting creaky. Stuff I’d patched together wasn’t holding up like I wanted.

So, I decided to kick off Season 3. Wasn’t a big committee decision or anything, just me figuring it needed doing. First thing, I spent a good morning just looking at what worked and what really didn’t in the last setup. Made a bunch of notes, mostly complaints to myself about past me’s decisions. Classic stuff.
Getting Started
First real action? I backed everything up. Twice. Learned that lesson the hard way a few years back. Didn’t want a repeat. Then I cleared the decks, basically archived the old Season 2 setup. Felt good, like cleaning out the garage.
Then I started laying down the new foundations. This time I wanted things simpler. Less fiddly bits. I grabbed the latest core components I needed for Hawk. Installation was mostly okay, standard procedure. But then came the configuration. Oh boy.
The Nitty-Gritty
This is where Season 3 really started to feel different. I tried setting up the new dashboard views first. Wanted something cleaner, easier to read at a glance. Spent maybe half a day dragging things around, tweaking settings. Got somewhere decent.
Then came the integrations. This was the messy part. Connecting Hawk to the other tools I use. Some went smooth, just plug and play like they promised. Others? Total nightmare. One particular connection, supposed to be straightforward? Took me two solid evenings. Documentation was vague, examples didn’t work. Had to basically poke at it with a stick until it suddenly started talking. No idea why it finally worked. Sometimes it’s just like that.

- Backed up old config (priority one!).
- Installed the new core parts.
- Fought with configuration files – lots of trial and error.
- Redesigned the main dashboard view.
- Wrestled with getting integrations talking to each other. Some easy, some awful.
Where It Stands Now
So, Hawk Season 3 is up and running. It’s… better. Definitely simpler in the ways I wanted it to be. The main dashboard is solid. The integrations that were a pain are working now, thankfully. Still got a few rough edges, some alerts that need fine-tuning. They’re a bit noisy right now.
But overall? It feels more stable. Easier to manage going forward, I hope. Wasn’t exactly fun getting here, especially that integration headache, but feels worth it now that it’s mostly settled. Just gotta keep an eye on it, tweak things as I go. Season 3, phase one complete, I guess. Now for the long haul of actually using it day-to-day.