spawnm

"spawn machine": Quickly spin up temporary Hetzner Cloud VMs.

Simply run

spawnm --ssh --workdir

to directly SSH into a new server with the contents of the current folder copied into it.

*Requires Hetzner's CLI hcloud to be set up and authed.

Installation

uv install spawnm

Prerequisites

1. Install the Hetzner Cloud CLI:

   brew install hcloud  # macOS

   Or see https://github.com/hetznercloud/cli for other platforms.

2. Configure hcloud with your API token:

   hcloud context create myproject
   # Enter your API token from https://console.hetzner.cloud/

3. Upload your SSH key to Hetzner Cloud:

   hcloud ssh-key create --name id_hetzner_macbook_air --public-key-from-file ~/.ssh/id_hetzner.pub

Usage

Create a VM

# Create with defaults
spawnm

# Create and SSH in immediately
spawnm --ssh

# Create, sync current directory, and SSH in
spawnm --ssh --workdir

# Create with custom options
spawnm --name my-server --size cx33 --image ubuntu-24.04

Destroy a VM

# Destroy the only tracked instance
spawnm destroy

# Destroy a specific instance
spawnm destroy my-server

# Destroy all tracked instances
spawnm destroy --all

Options

Option	Default	Description
--name	spawn-tmp-XXXX	Server name (random suffix by default)
--size	cx23	Server type (cx23, cx33, cx43, etc.)
--image	ubuntu-24.04	OS image
--location	fsn1	Datacenter (fsn1, nbg1, hel1, ash)
--ssh-key	id_hetzner_macbook_air	SSH key name in Hetzner Cloud
--ssh	-	SSH into server after creation
--workdir	-	Sync current directory to the server

Server Types

Type	vCPU	RAM	Disk
cx22	2	4 GB	40 GB
cx23	2	4 GB	80 GB
cx32	4	8 GB	80 GB
cx33	4	8 GB	160 GB
cx42	8	16 GB	160 GB
cx43	8	16 GB	320 GB

Locations

Code	Location
fsn1	Falkenstein, Germany
nbg1	Nuremberg, Germany
hel1	Helsinki, Finland
ash	Ashburn, USA

State

Instance information is stored in $XDG_STATE_HOME/spawnm/instances.json (defaults to ~/.local/state/spawnm/instances.json).

License

BSD-2-Clause