Quick Start

This guide gets you from zero to a running EC2 instance in about five minutes. You'll need an AWS account with credentials configured — everything else is handled for you.

Install

macOS / Linux (Homebrew)

brew install spore-host/tap/truffle
brew install spore-host/tap/spawn

Windows (Scoop)

scoop bucket add spore-host https://github.com/spore-host/scoop-bucket
scoop install truffle spawn

Manual

# Download from GitHub Releases
# https://github.com/spore-host/spore-host/releases/latest
tar -xzf spawn_*_$(uname -s)_$(uname -m).tar.gz
tar -xzf truffle_*_$(uname -s)_$(uname -m).tar.gz

Verify the installation:

truffle --version
spawn --version

Configure AWS credentials

spore.host uses your existing AWS credentials — the same ones you use for the AWS CLI. If you've already run aws configure, you're set.

# Check that credentials work
aws sts get-caller-identity

Don't have AWS CLI configured yet?

Run aws configure and provide your Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, and preferred region. spore.host requires permissions to describe and launch EC2 instances — see IAM Permissions for the minimal policy.

Find an instance

Before launching, use truffle to find what's available and compare prices:

# Find a small instance in your region
truffle find "t3 medium"

# Find GPU instances with Spot prices
truffle find "nvidia gpu" --regions us-east-1

You'll see a table of matching instance types with vCPUs, memory, GPU specs, on-demand price, and current Spot price. Pick a type that fits your workload and budget.

Launch your first instance

The simplest launch uses the interactive wizard. Just run spawn with no arguments:

spawn

The wizard walks you through instance type, region, SSH key, and TTL (the duration after which the instance automatically terminates). It takes about two minutes.

For a non-interactive launch:

spawn launch \
  --name my-first-instance \
  --instance-type t3.medium \
  --ttl 4h

Once running, you'll see the instance ID, public IP, and SSH command:

✓ Instance i-0a1b2c3d4e5f running
✓ my-first-instance.abc123.spore.host
✓ SSH: ssh ec2-user@3.84.123.45
✓ Auto-terminates in 4h

Connect

ssh ec2-user@<public-ip>

The SSH key used is whichever key you specified at launch. By default, spawn uses your ~/.ssh/id_rsa or prompts you to select one.

Check status

spawn list
spawn status my-first-instance

Extend the TTL

If you need more time before the instance terminates:

spawn extend my-first-instance 8h

Stop or terminate

spawn stop my-first-instance       # stopped, can be restarted with spawn start

Next steps

• How It Works — understand the full lifecycle and how the tools connect
• GPU Training — launch a GPU instance for a training job
• Slack Setup — control instances from Slack, get notifications when jobs finish
• spawn launch reference — every flag explained