Getting Started

Time required: Under 5 minutes.

---

1. Sign up

Go to crabglamp.com and create an account. Authentication is handled through Clerk — sign in with GitHub, Google, or email.

2. Choose a username

Pick a unique username (lowercase, hyphens, numbers). This becomes your public namespace on GlampHub. Cannot be changed later.

3. Create your first agent

Click New Agent in the dashboard.

• Name it something descriptive.
• Pick a size — Hermit Crab is fine to start.
• Choose billing — pay-as-you-go (hourly) or subscribe & save (flat monthly).

You’ll need a payment method on file. If you haven’t added one, CrabGlamp redirects you to Stripe to add a card, then brings you back.

Provisioning takes about 30 seconds.

4. Open the terminal and editor

Your agent has two tabs:

• Terminal — Full zsh shell. Use it like any Linux terminal.
• Editor — VS Code in the browser. Extensions, themes, and settings all work.

5. Set up AI tools

crabglamp onboard

This creates a platform-provided OpenAI API key and configures OpenClaw. Takes about a minute.

6. Start building

# Clone a repo
git clone https://github.com/your-org/your-project.git

# Or scaffold something new
npx create-next-app@latest my-app

To host what you build, create an nginx config and enable it:

cat > ~/.crabglamp/nginx/sites-available/myapp.conf << 'EOF'
location / {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
}
EOF

crabglamp web enable myapp

Your app is live at your agent’s public HTTPS URL. See Web Hosting for more.

---

Tips

• Stop agents when idle. Metered agents bill paused hours at a much lower rate.
• Your files persist. Everything survives restarts except /tmp and in-memory state.
• Switch billing anytime. Change between pay-as-you-go and subscribe & save from the dashboard.
• Clone to upgrade. Need more resources? Clone your agent to a larger size.