Sherlock v2.0: Inventory & Lending Management System

Sherlock is a comprehensive, self-hosted inventory and lending management system designed for school labs, makerspaces, and workshops.

This project is a complete, ground-up rewrite and significant feature expansion of the original Sherlock v1.0. It transforms the application from a simple inventory list into a powerful, data-driven lab management platform built on a modern and robust Python/Django backend.

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✨ Features at a Glance

Command Center Dashboard	Checkout Terminal
Item Detail & Audit Trails	On Loan Reporting

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Table of Contents

• Mission
• Core Features
• Deployment
• For Developers: Running from Source
• Technology Stack
• License

🌟 Mission

The goal of Sherlock v2.0 is to provide a powerful, easy-to-deploy, and intuitive tool for lab managers to track their physical inventory. It answers the critical questions of lab management:

• What do we have and where is it?
• Who has borrowed our equipment?
• When is it due back?
• What is our inventory's lifecycle?

✨ Core Features

Inventory Management

• Hierarchical Structure: Organize your inventory logically with Sections, Spaces, and Items.
• Stock Control: A full, permanent audit trail for every stock change (e.g., "Received New Stock," "Reported Damaged").
• Label Printing: Generate and print custom barcode and QR code labels to seamlessly bridge your physical and digital inventory.
• Unified Search: A powerful, live-search dashboard to find any item or student record in the system.

Advanced Lending System

• Student Records: Maintain a secure database of students with filtering and search capabilities.
• Kiosk-Style Checkout Terminal: A dedicated, fast interface for lending items, featuring a live, as-you-type search for both students and items.
• Stock Validation: The system automatically checks available stock before allowing a checkout.
• Partial Returns & Loan History: A sophisticated check-in system that allows for partial returns and keeps a complete, auditable log of every transaction for both students and items.
• Due Date & Overdue Tracking: Assign a due date to every loan and get instant visibility on overdue items through the main dashboard and a dedicated report.

Modern Technology

• Camera Scanning: Use your device's camera for rapid checkouts and to instantly look up any item, space, or section with the Universal Scan tool.
• Data Visualizations: The main dashboard features charts for weekly loan activity and most popular items, providing instant insight into your lab's operations.

🚀 Deployment

Sherlock is designed for incredibly simple deployment. It is packaged as a standalone executable using PyInstaller, containing the entire application, web server, and all dependencies.

How to Run Sherlock:

1. Go to the Releases page of this repository.
2. Download the latest .zip file for your operating system (e.g., Sherlock-v2.0.0-Windows.zip).
3. Unzip the file and double-click the Sherlock executable.

The server will start, automatically creating a new database on the first run. The application will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8000 and on your local network.

💻 For Developers: Running from Source

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/Sherlock-python.git
   cd Sherlock-python

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate  # On macOS/Linux
   .\venv\Scripts\activate   # On Windows

3. Install dependencies: pip install -r requirements.txt
4. Run migrations: python manage.py migrate
5. Create a superuser: python manage.py createsuperuser
6. Run the development server: python manage.py runserver

🛠️ Technology Stack

• Backend: Python 3, Django
• Frontend: HTML, CSS, HTMX, Chart.js
• Server: Waitress
• Packaging: PyInstaller

⚖️ License

This project is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See the LICENSE file for the full license text and the NOTICE file for attribution details.