| name | vast-ai-gpu-cloud |
| description | Safely inspect and operate Vast.ai marketplace instances with the vastai CLI, live offer data, and explicit approval before paid or destructive actions. |
| category | cloud-compute |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| author | Synthetic Sciences |
| license | MIT |
| tags | ["Infrastructure","GPU Cloud","Vast.ai","Marketplace","SSH"] |
| dependencies | ["vastai"] |
Vast.ai GPU Cloud
Use this skill for Vast.ai marketplace discovery and instance operations. Offers, reliability attributes, locations, bandwidth, storage, and prices are live marketplace data; query them immediately before recommending anything.
OpenScience credential boundary
- A key saved in Customize > Compute > Vast.ai is encrypted control-plane data and is not exported to agent shells, notebooks, kernels, plugins, or MCP servers.
- Use
provider_compute with account, list_resources, or resource_status for live account and instance reads. OpenScience selects only vastai show user --raw, show instances --raw, or one exact show instance <id> --raw invocation.
- Test connection uses the same boundary for exactly
vastai show user --raw.
- The saved key is admitted only when Test connection approves a root/admin-managed, non-writable
vastai executable. A normal user-owned pip, pipx, or Homebrew install remains credential-only and cannot be used by provider_compute until a managed/native adapter exists.
last_used changes only after that command succeeds.- Never print or persist the key. The saved credential cannot search/accept offers or start, stop, destroy, copy, or change instances; a generic shell needs independent user-managed authentication.
Current CLI contract
vastai --help
vastai show user --raw
vastai show instances --raw
Use vastai --help and the exact subcommand's --help before constructing marketplace filters or mutations. Do not rely on remembered filter fields or create flags.
Marketplace policy
- Confirm GPU memory/count, disk, bandwidth, reliability, verification requirements, location, runtime, interruption tolerance, and maximum budget.
- Query live offers. Preserve the provider's exact offer ID and quoted terms.
- Recommend one offer and explain the material reliability and interruption tradeoffs. Do not optimize on hourly price alone.
- Get explicit approval before accepting an offer, creating or destroying an instance, changing storage, or interrupting a workload.
- After creation, reconcile by instance ID before retrying any ambiguous request.
- Verify SSH and workload health; do not treat an instance state alone as proof the job succeeded.
- Copy and verify required outputs before destruction. Ask separately before deleting durable volumes or templates.
Never hardcode prices or claim availability. Never automatically switch to a different offer after approval; changed offer terms require a new recommendation and approval.
SSH handoff
Add the instance in Customize > Compute > SSH with the provider-reported username/address and a pinned host key. Use a literal key path with restrictive permissions. OpenScience ignores executable SSH configuration such as ProxyCommand and Match exec.
Sources of truth
