No always-on machine? Use a small VPS

brnrd runs as a background daemon on hardware you own. If your laptop sleeps when you close the lid, the daemon sleeps with it — there is no “always on” without a machine that stays on. A Mac mini or a home server both work; so does the smallest tier of any VPS provider, usually $4–6/month (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr, and similar all sell one — check current pricing, it moves). This page is the same install as Install, run over SSH instead of a local terminal, plus the two steps that are specific to a headless box.

Nothing below is a brnrd-specific product — it’s a normal small Linux VPS running brnrd the same way it would run any other daemon.

1. Get a box and SSH in

Any small Ubuntu or Debian instance works. brnrd itself only needs git and Python 3.10+ (the npm and uv install routes provision Python for you if it’s missing — see Install → “The Python part”). A stock Ubuntu image already has both, or close enough that the installer’s fallback handles the gap.

ssh you@your-vps-ip

2. Install a coding-agent CLI, and authenticate it

brnrd drives Claude Code or Codex — it doesn’t replace them, so one has to be on the box first, authenticated with your own subscription or API key.

Headless auth is CLI-specific — not fully verified here

Both CLIs’ normal login flow opens a browser on the same machine. A VPS has no browser. As of this writing, each vendor has some path around that — pasting a printed login URL into a browser on your phone or laptop, or an API-key environment variable — but the exact flag and prompts change between CLI versions. Run claude --help or codex --help on the box and follow its own headless-login instructions; this guide doesn’t reproduce them because they weren’t re-verified for this page.

3. Install brnrd

Same three routes as any machine:

npm install -g brnrd         # if you have Node
# or: uv tool install brnrd
# or: pipx install brnrd
brnrd --version

4. Run it

brnrd

The guided setup pairs this VPS with your brnrd account and prints a pairing link. Open that link on your phone or laptop — it’s a link you approve, not a localhost callback, so it doesn’t need a browser on the VPS itself. From there it installs and starts the background service (a systemd unit on Linux) the same way it would on a desktop.

Prefer no account at all? brnrd gate setup telegram && brnrd daemon install wires a self-hosted Telegram gate directly, with no brnrd account or payment involved (see Connect).

What you don’t need to open

Self-hosted Telegram polls Telegram for updates (getUpdates) instead of receiving a webhook, so it needs outbound internet access only — no inbound firewall rule or open port to configure for that gate. (Other gates may differ; this guide only checks the one most people reach for first.)

Next

Send your first task — from the VPS this works exactly like it does anywhere else; the daemon doesn’t know or care that its machine happens to be rented by the hour.