Your first devmachine, explained

The first commands, one at a time: what each asks and what it does. At the end you have a workspace called acme on your server.

You need: a VPS running Debian, Ubuntu or Arch Linux that you reach over SSH as root, or as an admin login with passwordless sudo, and a Mac or Linux computer. A Mac can be the machine too: see what a machine needs.

By hand

1. Install the CLI

curl -fsSL https://mydevmachine.sh/install.sh | sh

2. Connect the server

devmachine setup

It asks for the server’s address and login, then shows its fingerprint. Check it against your provider’s dashboard before you say yes: that is how you know it is your server. Then it installs a key, proves the key works, turns password logins off, and picks the essentials package for the machine (--no-essentials skips it). See how setup locks the server.

Once the machine answers, it asks whether to write SSH host entries to ~/.ssh/config — say yes, and ssh acme-devmachine works from any terminal or editor from here on, kept up to date automatically. It also asks about Tailscale, a private address that keeps working when the public one does not; see reaching your server.

3. Teach your agent the CLI

devmachine skills add

Any new Claude Code or Codex session can now run devmachine for you.

4. Create the workspace

devmachine workspaces new acme
devmachine sync

workspaces new adds acme to your configuration. sync builds it on the server, together with the essentials setup chose for the machine (base tools, git, a firewall, Caddy and what the macOS app reads): acme is its own account, with git, the GitHub CLI, Node, bun and zsh. It shows the plan and asks before changing anything.

5. Open it

devmachine ssh acme

You land inside tmux, so what you start keeps running after you close the terminal. See keep your sessions running.

Said yes to SSH aliases? ssh acme-devmachine reaches the same workspace, from any terminal, editor or app that dials ssh directly.

With your agent

Install the CLI (step 1), then say to Claude Code or Codex on your computer:

Set up devmachine for me with a workspace called acme:
read https://mydevmachine.sh/agent-setup.md and follow it.

It asks for what it needs, one question at a time. You still check the fingerprint in devmachine setup, and you approve the sync.

Check it: devmachine doctor passes, and devmachine ssh acme opens a shell on the server.