exe.dev Setup

exe.dev provides persistent VMs accessible via SSH. Unlike ephemeral providers (Daytona, Replicated CMX), exe.dev VMs survive until you explicitly delete them — making them ideal for long-running agents or stateful workloads.

1. An exe.dev account. Sign up at exe.dev.
2. The ssh CLI installed and in your $PATH. exe.dev uses standard SSH for all control-plane operations.
3. An SSH key pair. exe.dev authenticates via SSH keys — no separate API tokens needed.

If you don't have an SSH key pair:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your-email@example.com" -f ~/.ssh/exedev

Register the public key with exe.dev:

ssh exe.dev key add ~/.ssh/exedev.pub

Or copy the key to your clipboard and paste it into the exe.dev web UI:

cat ~/.ssh/exedev.pub | pbcopy  # macOS
# cat ~/.ssh/exedev.pub | xclip -selection clipboard  # Linux

Test that your SSH key is recognized:

ssh exe.dev ls --json

You should see a JSON list of VMs (empty if you haven't created any):

{"vms":[]}

If you get a permission error, verify the key is registered:

ssh exe.dev key list

Add the exe.dev provider to your hub.yaml:

providers:
  exedev:
    ssh_key_path: ~/.ssh/exedev    # optional; uses SSH agent if omitted

If ssh_key_path is omitted, ElasticClaw uses your default SSH agent. This works if you've added the key via ssh-add.

Set exe.dev as the default provider for a workspace:

# elasticclaw-config.yaml
provider: exedev
resources:
  cpu: "2"
  memory: 4GB
  disk: 20GB
nix: false                       # exe.dev VMs are bare; enable if you need Nix
docker: false                    # enable if you need Docker

Or set per-workflow:

# workflows/long-running-agent/workflow.yaml
name: long-running-agent
provider: exedev
trigger:
  linear:
    event: status_changed
    states:
      - "Ready for Agent"