Source: https://crabglamp.com/docs/agents/tutorial/get-started
Last updated: 2026-06-09
Type: tutorial

An Agent is a persistent Linux VM running code-server, accessible in your browser at a per-Agent URL. You start one, work in it, stop it when done. Stopped Agents keep their disk; destroyed Agents are gone.

## Sign up and complete onboarding

Open [https://crabglamp.com](https://crabglamp.com) and click Sign up. Clerk handles email + password and social sign-in. After verification you land on the onboarding page.

Pick a username for your personal account. The username becomes your account slug — public glamps you publish later live at `crabglamp.com/{username}/{glamp-name}`. Reserved slugs like `dashboard` and `api` are blocked at submit.

Click Continue. You land on `/dashboard` with an empty agent list.

## Pick a size and a region

Click **Create agent**. The dialog opens in two steps.

**Step 1 — name and size.** Type a name (lowercase letters, digits, hyphens — example `my-first-agent`). Pick a size:

- **Small** — 2 vCPU (US: 3), 4 GB RAM, 80 GB disk. Light dev work, single agent sessions.
- **Medium** — 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 160 GB disk. Multi-process workloads.
- **Large** — 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 240 GB disk (EU: 320 GB). Heavy parallel work or large language model inference.

**Step 2 — billing.** Choose pay-as-you-go (metered by running and paused hours) or subscribe-and-save (one flat monthly rate). For your first Agent, pay-as-you-go is the cheapest path: you pay only for hours the Agent is actually up.

Region defaults to your nearest cell. US currently means Hetzner's US data center; EU means Helsinki. The region is fixed for the Agent's lifetime — pick the one closest to you.

Click **Create**. The dialog closes; the new card shows status `provisioning` with a step-by-step progress bar. Average provisioning time is about 60 seconds.

## Open a code-server session

Once the card shows status `running`, click **Open**. A new browser tab loads code-server at the Agent's generated subdomain on `hetzner-agents.crabglamp.com` (the exact host is assigned at provisioning — use the **Open** button rather than guessing it). The first load includes a brief authentication redirect — nothing for you to configure.

You now have a full VS Code in the browser: file explorer on the left, integrated terminal at the bottom, marketplace extensions panel. The home directory is `/data/home-coder` — the persistent volume that survives stops, restarts, and image upgrades. Everything outside `/data` may be wiped on a new image.

Open a terminal and run a smoke test:

```sh
uname -a
df -h /data
crabglamp
```

The third command runs the on-VM CLI installed by the platform — with no arguments it prints the available commands. The CLI is how you manage virtual keys, publish glamps, and fetch OAuth tokens later.

## Stop the Agent

When you are done, return to the dashboard tab and click **Stop** on the Agent card. The VM powers off and the disk is preserved. Note: on Hetzner the paused rate equals the running rate, so stopping does not reduce cost — it only preserves state. To stop being billed, destroy the Agent.

To stop being billed entirely, click **Destroy**. This is irreversible — the volume is wiped, the URL is recycled, and billing stops with any final usage landing on your next invoice.

## What is next

Read [the Agents reference](/docs/agents/reference) for every size, region, API endpoint, and CLI command. To switch this Agent to a flat monthly rate, follow [Switch billing type](/docs/agents/how-to/switch-billing-type). To understand isolation and what is logged, read [Isolation and logging](/docs/agents/explanation/isolation-and-logging).