obm 🚢

Deploy your own AI agent to the cloud in about five minutes.

Just answer a few questions and your agent is live in the cloud.

---

What is this?

obm is a command-line tool that walks you through setting up an AI agent on cloud infrastructure. It asks you things like "which cloud provider?" and "which AI model?" — then validates your answers on the spot, writes the config, and hands it off to Terraform to build everything.

It supports two agent frameworks:

• Hermes Agent — "Self-improving AI agent" built by Nous Research. Built-in learning loop, creates skills from experience, improves them during use, nudges itself to persist knowledge, and builds a deepening model of who you are across sessions.
• OpenClaw — "The AI that actually does things." Clears your inbox, sends emails, manages your calendar, checks you in for flights. Action oriented.

Both run on either Hetzner Cloud or DigitalOcean.

---

Quick start

Install

Mac or Linux (one command):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openboatmobile/obm/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Or download a binary from the releases page and put it somewhere on your PATH.

Or build from source (requires Go 1.22+):

git clone https://github.com/openboatmobile/obm.git
cd obm
make build

Deploy your agent

obm deploy

That's it. You'll get an interactive walkthrough that looks like this:

🚢 OpenBoatmobile — Deploy your AI agent

Step 1: Agent Framework
  [1] Hermes Agent (Nous Research) — Python-based, highly configurable
  [2] OpenClaw — Node.js-based, simpler setup

Step 2: Cloud Provider
  [1] Hetzner Cloud — from €4.49/mo (recommended, ~70% cheaper)
  [2] DigitalOcean — from $6/mo (wider region availability)

Step 3: Provider API Token
  Get yours at: https://console.hetzner.cloud/ → Security → API Tokens
  Token: ********
  ✓ Token validated

...

At the end, you'll see a summary with cost estimate and get asked to confirm. Say yes, and obm writes your config and kicks off Terraform.

Other commands

Command	What it does
obm deploy	Interactive walkthrough to set up a new agent
obm validate	Checks your existing config and API keys
obm status	Shows the state of your current deployment
obm destroy	Tears down your infrastructure (asks first, don't worry)
obm version	Prints the version

Non-interactive mode (for automation)

If you're running this in CI/CD or just don't want the prompts:

obm deploy --config deploy.yaml

See deploy.yaml.example for the full config file format.

---

What you'll need

Before running obm deploy, have these ready:

1. A cloud provider account — Hetzner Cloud or DigitalOcean. Hetzner is cheaper; DigitalOcean has more data center locations.
2. An API token from your cloud provider. You can generate one in their dashboard.
3. An AI model API key — Venice AI, OpenRouter, OpenAI, or Anthropic. This is the "brain" your agent will use.
4. An SSH public key uploaded to your cloud provider (so you can log into your server later).

Optional but recommended:

• Tailscale account for VPN access to your server
• Discord bot token if you want your agent to chat on Discord

---

How much does it cost?

The server cost depends on your cloud provider and server size. obm shows you the estimated monthly cost before you commit. Generally speaking, a server that costs $5 to $8 (USD) per month will give you plenty of resources.

The AI model API costs are separate, and depend on your usage. Generally that's the biggest cost with an AI agent. Running this part within the server instead of using a provider, will be slower but cheaper. If low cost is a priority, set up local inference.

---

What happens under the hood?

obm generates a .env file that Terraform reads to provision your server, install the agent software, and configure everything. You don't need to know Terraform — obm handles it.

The Terraform configs live in the openboatmobile-ai repo. obm is the friendly CLI wrapper around them.

---

Project status

obm is actively developed and functional for the core deploy workflow. Here's what works and what's coming:

Working now:

• Interactive deploy walkthrough (8 steps)
• API key validation for cloud providers and inference providers
• SSH key listing from Hetzner
• .env file generation
• Config validation (obm validate)
• Infrastructure teardown (obm destroy)
• Non-interactive mode with YAML config
• Cross-compiled binaries (Linux, macOS, Windows)
• curl | sh installer

Coming soon:

• obm status — SSH health checks on your deployment
• DigitalOcean provider validation
• Cost estimation display
• Resumable deploy (pick up where you left off)

---

For developers

Building, testing, and contributing — see DETAILS.md for the full technical reference and CONTRIBUTING.md for the contribution guide.

For AI agents

If you're an AI agent reading this to learn about the project, check out LLMs.md — it's written specifically for you.

---

License

MIT