--- sidebar_position: 1.4 slug: /developers/claude-code-gpu title: Give Claude Code a GPU in 60 seconds description: Hand Claude Code (or any coding agent) a Lium GPU through the lium CLI, with a scoped API key, a server-enforced daily budget and automatic removal. Every command and output on this page comes from a real run against lium.io. --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.lium.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. > > Lium (lium.io) is a GPU rental marketplace: rent NVIDIA GPUs by the hour, billed per second. # Give Claude Code a GPU in 60 seconds Claude Code already runs shell commands, so the `lium` CLI is all it needs to rent a GPU, run code on it, bring results back and remove the pod. Setup takes three things from you: an API key with narrow scopes and a budget, one `pip install`, and a short instruction for the agent. In the run this page was written from (15 Oct 2026, CLI 0.16.1), `lium up` returned a ready RTX 5070 Ti pod on the default PyTorch template in **26 seconds**, and the first `lium exec` output arrived **30 seconds** after `lium up` started. The whole test cost $0.006: billing is per second with no minimum. ## 1. Create a key for the agent Give the agent its own key, not your account's default key. This one can list nodes and rent pods (`read`, `rent`), sees only the pods it created, and may spend at most $5 per UTC day. Sign in for a session token, then create the key with it. The session token is a secret too; keep it in a variable and do not hand it to the agent. ```bash API=https://lium.io/api JWT=$(curl -s $API/users/login -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"email": "you@example.com", "password": "…"}' | jq -r .token) RESP=$(curl -s $API/keys -H "Authorization: Bearer $JWT" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"name": "claude-code-20261015", "scopes": ["read", "rent"], "pod_visibility": "own", "daily_budget_usd": 5}') export LIUM_API_KEY=$(jq -r .key <<<"$RESP") # the agent's new key; the next step hands it to the CLI ``` `$RESP` carries the key and its budget (trimmed, key redacted): ```json { "id": "e9140f46-…", "name": "claude-code-20261015", "key": "sk_…", "masked_key": "sk_9ON3vu0T********", "scopes": ["read", "rent"], "daily_budget_usd": 5.0, "monthly_budget_usd": null, "max_budget_usd": null, "pod_visibility": "own", "spent_today_usd": 0.0 } ``` You can also add a monthly (`monthly_budget_usd`) or lifetime (`max_budget_usd`) budget, or `"pod_visibility": "own"` so the agent sees only the pods it rented. See [API keys](../pod-users/api-keys.md#budgets). ## 2. Install the CLI and hand it the key ```bash pip install lium.io lium config set api.api_key "$LIUM_API_KEY" # or just export LIUM_API_KEY; the CLI reads it ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N "" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 # only if you have no SSH key yet; lium uses it to reach the pod lium whoami ``` ```text API key sk_9ON…q8U8 (config:~/.lium/config.ini [api] api_key) Account 076ed099-… Balance $176.10 API https://lium.io/api reachable, 1713 ms CLI lium 0.16.1 ``` ## 3. Tell Claude Code how to use it Paste this into your project's `CLAUDE.md` (or give it as the first instruction): ```markdown ## GPU compute (Lium) You can rent GPUs with the `lium` CLI. The API key is already configured (LIUM_API_KEY / ~/.lium/config.ini); never print it. Rules: - Pick a node with `lium ls --count 1 --format json` (cheapest first) unless I ask for a specific GPU. - Always rent with a name and a deadline: `lium up --name --ttl 1h -y --json`. Never rent without `--ttl` (or `--until`). - Run work with `lium exec ""`; use `lium exec -d ""` for anything long. - Bring results back with `lium scp

-d`. - When the work is done, or anything fails, run `lium rm -y`, then `lium ps` to confirm it is gone. - Check spend with `lium spend`. If a rent is refused with API_KEY_BUDGET_EXCEEDED, stop and tell me. ``` ## 4. What the agent runs These are the exact commands from the test run, with their output. **Pick the cheapest single-GPU node:** ```bash NODE=$(lium ls --count 1 --format json | jq -r '.[0].huid') # gentle-eagle-11, 1×RTX 5070 Ti, $0.40/h ``` `--count 1` keeps to nodes that rent as one GPU. The bare `lium up --gpu A4000` at the time of the test matched only a 6-GPU node that does not split, and exited 1 with `node_selection_failed` and no pod created, so filtering in `lium ls` first is the reliable path. **Rent it with auto-removal after one hour:** ```bash lium up "$NODE" --name cc-demo --ttl 1h -y --json ``` Progress goes to stderr, the ready pod as JSON to stdout: ```text Est. deploy time: ~1m 0s (image: ~4.9 GB, download: 315 Mbps) renting gentle-eagle-11… pod cc-demo (id: 37943de0-…) created; waiting for it to become ready removal of pod cc-demo scheduled for 2026-10-15 04:04 UTC (in 1.0h), whether or not it becomes ready waiting for noble-comet-c6… PENDING (4 s) · est. ready any moment now (phase: mounting encrypted volume) waiting for noble-comet-c6… RUNNING (6 s) Pod noble-comet-c6 (name: cc-demo, id: 37943de0-…) ready ``` ```json { "pod": { "huid": "noble-comet-c6", "name": "cc-demo", "status": "RUNNING", "gpu_type": "RTX5070", "template": "Pytorch (Cuda + DinD)", "price_per_hour": 0.4, "removal_scheduled_at": "2026-10-15T04:04:47.189699", "api_key_name": "claude-code-20261015" }, "termination_time": "2026-10-15T04:04:47.189699+00:00" } ``` The removal is scheduled as soon as the pod exists, so it holds even if the agent's session ends before cleanup. **Run code on the GPU:** ```bash lium exec cc-demo "nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name,memory.total --format=csv" ``` ```text Executing on noble-comet-c6 name, memory.total [MiB] NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 16303 MiB ``` The first connection to a pod also prints one line on stderr as the CLI pins the pod's SSH host key. ```bash lium exec cc-demo "python -c 'import torch;print(torch.cuda.is_available())'" ``` ```text Executing on noble-comet-c6 True ``` `lium exec` exits with the remote command's exit code, so the agent can branch on it. **Collect output:** ```bash lium exec cc-demo "mkdir -p /root/out && nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name,memory.total --format=csv > /root/out/gpu.csv \ && python -c 'import torch;print(torch.__version__, torch.cuda.get_device_name(0))' >> /root/out/gpu.csv" lium scp cc-demo /root/out/gpu.csv ./dl/ -d cat dl/gpu.csv ``` ```text name, memory.total [MiB] NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 16303 MiB 2.12.0+cu130 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ``` `lium scp` uploads by default; `-d` downloads. For whole directories going up, use `lium rsync`. **Check spend, then clean up:** ```bash lium spend lium rm cc-demo -y lium ps ``` ```text Pod Config $/h Uptime Spent Since (UTC) cc-demo RTX5070 $0.40 1m $0.01 2026-10-15 03:04 Removed 1 pod(s): noble-comet-c6 removed cc-demo — 1m at $0.40/h ≈ $0.01 ``` After `lium rm`, `lium ps` no longer lists `cc-demo`. Billing stopped at removal; the key's `spent_today_usd` read $0.006 for the run. **Delete the key when you are done with it** (from your session, not the agent's): ```bash curl -X DELETE $API/keys/$KEY_ID -H "Authorization: Bearer $JWT" ``` ## Why this is safe to hand to an agent - **Scoped key.** The key carries only `read` and `rent` and sees only its own pods, so it cannot touch other pods on the account. It cannot create other keys or raise its own budget: those need your signed-in session. - **A budget the server enforces.** A rent that would take the key past its daily budget is refused with `402 API_KEY_BUDGET_EXCEEDED`, and if running pods take the key to its budget, the pods that key created are removed. This happens on Lium's side, whatever the agent does. Details in [API keys → Budgets](../pod-users/api-keys.md#budgets). - **Automatic removal.** `--ttl` schedules the pod's removal on the platform the moment the pod exists, so a crashed or forgotten session still ends with no pod running. A key at its budget cannot push that removal later. See [Scheduled termination](../pod-users/scheduled-termination.md). - **Per-second billing.** A short experiment costs cents; this whole test cost under one cent. For the full agent integration (signup without a browser, self-funding, the agent skill), see [AI Agents](./agents.md) and [Scripting for agents](./agent-scripting.md).