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Building software · Claude Code

Set up your own home server by describing what you want in plain words

Idea + starter prompt, not run by us yet

For: Tinkerers who want their own photo, password and media services but dread the setup work

A developer installed Ubuntu Server and Tailscale on a mini PC, connected from his laptop, then put Claude Code on the server. He described outcomes and the agent set up Docker, Caddy and services like Vaultwarden, Immich, Plex and Readeck, plus a monitoring page and backups. The 14 containers it runs use less than a tenth of the CPU.

Steps

  1. Pick a small machine, install Ubuntu Server and Tailscale, and confirm you can SSH in from your laptop.
  2. Install Claude Code on the server and start with one service, not fourteen.
  3. Describe the result you want. Ask for the plan and the commands before it runs them.
  4. Create any cloud account or access key yourself, such as the backup user in AWS, and give the agent only what it needs.
  5. Have it set up backups and then test a restore on a spare folder, so you know the backup works.
  6. Budget for hardware. The source bought a mini PC and extra NVMe storage. Plex hardware transcoding also needs a Plex Pass.

Starter prompt

Starter prompt. Change the [brackets] first.

You are on my home server, running Ubuntu with Docker. I want to self-host [service, for example Immich for photos].

Trial first. Before the real service, run a harmless test container such as a tiny web page, with its data in a scratch folder called [/srv/trial]. Show me it works over Tailscale only, then remove only that container after I say yes.

Then show me a plan for the real service: the Docker Compose file, the ports it opens, where data is stored and how it stays reachable only through Tailscale. Wait for my OK.

Set it up step by step and tell me every command you run. Stop and wait for my yes before each command that installs something, opens a port, edits the firewall, creates an account or deletes or overwrites anything. Showing me the command is not permission to run it. Never open anything to the public internet. Do not ask me to paste passwords or access keys into this chat. If a cloud account or key is needed, tell me what to create myself and where to put it on the server.

Finish with a backup to [location], tested by restoring into a spare folder.

Original post: fulghum.io · found via agentusecases.ai. Written up in our own words. We haven't run it, so test it on made-up data first.