Bare-metal rigs

A bare-metal rig is a machine that you own, used directly as a rig. It is not a VM. Amika gives you SSH to the machine and shows it with your other rigs. Use it for a workstation or server that you already set up and want to keep as it is. A bare-metal rig runs on a BYOC host. The amika-hostd daemon on the machine registers it with Amika. One host can run a bare-metal rig and VM rigs together, or only the bare-metal rig.

How it differs from a VM rig

Amika changes nothing on the machine. It does not copy files, secrets or settings to it.

Feature	VM rig on a host	Bare-metal rig
Rigs per host	Many	One
`amika rig ssh` and editors over SSH	Yes	Yes, as your account
Repository clone, setup and start scripts	Yes	No
Secrets, environment variables and agent credentials	Yes	No
MCP integrations and services	Yes	No
Presets, sizes and snapshots	Yes	No
Web terminal	Yes	No
`amika send`, agent sessions and command runs	Yes	No

SSH sessions log in as the account that runs amika-hostd, not as amika. They start in that account’s home directory. Amika never runs commands as root on the machine.

Every member of your organization who has a registered SSH key can log in to a bare-metal rig, as your account. Make a bare-metal rig only on a machine that your organization can share.

Requirements

macOS, or Linux with glibc 2.34 or newer. Windows is not supported.
An sshd binary. It does not have to run as a service: Amika starts its own sshd on a loopback port. macOS has one. On Linux, install openssh-server if sshd is missing.
Directories that pass sshd’s strict-mode check. Your home directory and each directory above amika-hostd’s state directory must not be writable by the group or by other users. Setup names each directory that fails, and the chmod that fixes it.
A user-scoped Amika API key, as for any BYOC host.

Set up the machine

New host
Existing host

Install the daemon with --bare-metal. The installer then skips smolvm, because the host runs no VMs, and turns on only the bare_metal runtime:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gofixpoint/amika/main/install-amika-hostd.sh | sh -s -- --bare-metal
Store your credentials. Setup checks the machine, installs amikad, and prints the detected CPUs, memory and disk, and the account that SSH uses:
amika-hostd setup
Start the daemon:
amika-hostd up

If the machine already runs amika-hostd for VM rigs, turn on the bare_metal runtime:

amika-hostd capabilities update --enable bare_metal

The command checks the machine as setup does, installs amikad, adds [runtimes.bare_metal] to the config file, and reloads the running daemon. If a check fails, it changes nothing. Your VM rigs continue to run.

Make sure the host shows the runtime:

amika host list            # the RUNTIMES column shows bare_metal
amika host get my-host     # shows the SSH user and the machine's resources

Create the rig

A bare-metal rig takes only a name.

CLI
Web UI
HTTP API

amika rig create --name my-workstation --host my-host --runtime bare_metal

If bare_metal is the host’s only runtime, you can omit --runtime. Do not give a preset, size, snapshot, repository, secret or agent option: the create fails with bare_metal_unsupported_option. The CLI ignores the repository in your current directory.

Send the host’s ID as host_id and "runtime": "bare_metal". Set no other field except name.

curl -X POST https://app.amika.dev/api/v0beta1/rigs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AMIKA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name":"my-workstation","host_id":"host_123","runtime":"bare_metal"}'

A second bare-metal rig on the same host fails with 409 host_rig_limit. Delete the first rig before you make another.

Connect to the rig

Use SSH as for any rig. See SSH and connect.

amika rig ssh my-workstation

Your SSH key must be registered with Amika before you create the rig. If you register a key later, stop and start the rig to install it.

Stop and delete the rig

amika rig stop stops the SSH bridge. The machine continues to run.
amika rig start starts the SSH bridge again.
amika rig delete removes the rig and the bridge’s state. Your files and settings on the machine do not change.

To stop offering bare metal on the host, delete the rig, then run amika-hostd capabilities update --disable bare_metal. The command refuses while the rig exists.

Get started

Rigs (machines)

Agents and sessions

Configuration

Connecting to rigs

Guides for agents

Advanced

Bare-metal rigs

How it differs from a VM rig

Requirements

Set up the machine

Create the rig

Connect to the rig

Stop and delete the rig

​How it differs from a VM rig

​Requirements

​Set up the machine

​Create the rig

​Connect to the rig

​Stop and delete the rig

How it differs from a VM rig

Requirements

Set up the machine

Create the rig

Connect to the rig

Stop and delete the rig