basilica-rentals-ops

name	basilica-rentals-ops
description	Use when the user wants direct machine access on Basilica via rentals, including discovery, SSH keys, secure-cloud/community-cloud selection, volumes, SSH, exec, file copy, and teardown.

Basilica Rentals Ops

Use this skill when the user wants:

• a GPU or CPU machine with shell access
• direct SSH access instead of an HTTP deployment
• custom training environments
• long-running jobs that are easier to manage on a box
• huge models that may be awkward as serverless deployments

When To Choose Rentals Instead Of Deploys

Prefer rentals when the task needs:

• SSH
• custom package or system setup
• distributed training
• manual process control
• large multi-GPU inference where health-check timing is likely to be painful

If the user wants a public URL, an HTTP API, or a managed inference endpoint, use the serverless skill instead.

Canonical Preflight

Authenticate:

basilica login

Check balance before creating cost-bearing resources:

basilica balance

Make sure an SSH key exists in Basilica:

basilica ssh-keys list
basilica ssh-keys add

Discover Available Compute

List everything:

basilica ls

Filter by GPU type:

basilica ls h100
basilica ls h200

Filter by budget, location, and compute pool:

basilica ls --price-max 5 --country US
basilica ls --compute secure-cloud
basilica ls --compute community-cloud

Useful filters supported by the CLI include:

• positional GPU type like h100
• --gpu-min
• --gpu-max
• --price-max
• --memory-min
• --country
• --compute

Start A Rental

Example: single-machine rental

basilica up h100 --gpu-count 1

Example: large multi-GPU box

basilica up h200 --gpu-count 8 --compute secure-cloud

The compute selector currently maps to:

• citadel, secure-cloud, secure
• bourse, community-cloud, community

Prefer being explicit with --compute when the user cares about the environment.

Inspect Running Or Previous Rentals

List active rentals:

basilica ps

Include history:

basilica ps --history

Inspect one rental:

basilica status <rental-id>

Operate A Rental

SSH into the machine:

basilica ssh <rental-id>

Run a one-off command:

basilica exec "nvidia-smi" --target <rental-id>

Stream logs:

basilica logs <rental-id>

Restart:

basilica restart <rental-id>

Copy files:

basilica cp ./local.txt <rental-id>:/workspace/local.txt
basilica cp <rental-id>:/workspace/output.txt ./output.txt

Volumes

For secure-cloud rentals that need persistent storage:

Create a volume:

basilica volumes create --name cache --size 100 --provider hyperstack --region US-1

List volumes:

basilica volumes list

Attach to a rental:

basilica volumes attach cache --rental <rental-id>

Detach:

basilica volumes detach cache --yes

Delete:

basilica volumes delete cache --yes

Current volume constraints exposed in the CLI:

• provider is hyperstack
• regions include US-1, CANADA-1, NORWAY-1

Teardown

Stop one rental:

basilica down <rental-id>

Stop everything:

basilica down --all

Agents should tear down rentals at the end of a task unless the user explicitly wants them preserved.

Operational Notes

• basilica up ensures an SSH key is present before provisioning.
• Secure-cloud log streaming is limited; if logs are thin or missing, use basilica ssh <rental-id> and inspect the machine directly.
• If the user needs CPU-only secure-cloud resources, the Python SDK currently exposes that surface more directly than the CLI.

Good Agent Defaults

• start with basilica balance
• then basilica ls ...
• then create the rental
• immediately return the rental ID and connection method
• explicitly ask whether to keep or tear down the machine when the work is done

File Pointers

• crates/basilica-cli/src/cli/handlers/gpu_rental.rs
• crates/basilica-cli/src/cli/handlers/ssh_keys.rs
• crates/basilica-cli/src/cli/handlers/volumes.rs
• crates/basilica-sdk-python/examples/start_secure_cloud_gpu_rental.py
• crates/basilica-sdk-python/examples/start_cpu_rental.py

TODOs

• add a tested example for secure-cloud CPU rentals once the CLI gets a cleaner CPU-first workflow
• add a repo-local transcript showing basilica up -> basilica ssh -> basilica down