Hetzner VPS Skill

Provision Hetzner Cloud VPS instances with Claude Code pre-installed.

Provisioning Workflow

Step 1: Pre-Flight Verification

Invoke the hetzner-preflight-check agent to verify prerequisites and gather options dynamically.

The agent verifies hcloud CLI, validates token, and returns available:

• Locations (datacenter options)
• SSH keys (registered in Hetzner)
• Existing servers (to avoid naming conflicts)

Step 2: Gather User Preferences

Use AskUserQuestion to collect:

Option	Required	Default
Server name	Yes	-
SSH key	Yes	-
Location	Yes	-
Server type	No	Cheapest 4 vCPU, 8 GB option
Terminal setup	No	No
ccstatusline setup	No	No

Recommendations:

• Server type: Preflight check finds the cheapest 4 vCPU, 8 GB server (best balance for Claude Code)
• Location: fsn1 (Germany) for EU, ash (Virginia) for US

Step 3: Provision

Call provision.sh with explicit flags:

${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/provision/scripts/provision.sh \
  --name <server-name> \
  --ssh-key <key-name> \
  --location <location> \
  --type <selected-type> \
  --terminal-setup    # Optional: copy zsh/oh-my-zsh/p10k
  --statusline-setup  # Optional: install bun + ccstatusline

Step 4: Post-Provision

After successful provisioning, provide the user with:

SSH access:     ssh claude@<ip>
Next steps:     claude

Interactive SSH (recommended for daily use):

# Connect to the server
ssh claude@<ip>

# Claude is available in PATH for interactive sessions
claude --version
claude

Non-interactive SSH verification:

# Use full path for non-interactive SSH commands
ssh claude@<ip> "~/.local/bin/claude --version"

Note: Non-interactive SSH commands (e.g., ssh user@host "command") don't source shell profiles, so the claude command won't be in PATH. Always use the full path ~/.local/bin/claude for non-interactive verification. Interactive sessions work normally.

Flags Reference

Flag	Description
--name	Server name (must be unique)
--ssh-key	SSH key name from Hetzner Cloud
--location	Datacenter (fsn1, nbg1, ash, hil, hel1, sin)
--type	Server type (from preflight recommendation)
--user	Non-root username (default: claude)
--terminal-setup	Copy local zsh/oh-my-zsh/p10k config
--statusline-setup	Install bun and copy statusLine settings

Available Scripts

Script	Purpose
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/provision/scripts/provision.sh	Create VPS with Claude Code
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/provision/scripts/status.sh	Check VPS health
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/provision/scripts/ssh-command.sh	Execute remote commands
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/provision/scripts/inject-secret.sh	Inject other secrets (databases, APIs)

Prerequisites

First-time setup requirements (see references/prerequisites.md):

• hcloud CLI installed
• HCLOUD_TOKEN environment variable set
• SSH key registered in Hetzner Cloud

Terminal Setup Options

When --terminal-setup is provided, copies from local machine:

• ~/.zshrc, ~/.oh-my-zsh/, ~/.p10k.zsh
• ~/.config/ccstatusline/

When --statusline-setup is also provided:

• Installs bun runtime
• Creates ~/.claude/settings.json with statusLine (uses full path to bunx)

Troubleshooting

See references/troubleshooting.md for:

• SSH connection issues
• Claude Code installation failures
• ccstatusline not appearing
• Terminal font issues

Security

See references/security-best-practices.md for:

• Claude account authentication
• Token security
• Incident response