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Vast.ai Python SDK Guide

A reference skill that teaches Claude to drive Vast.ai GPU instances, volumes, serverless endpoints, and billing through the Python SDK.

Dev & CodingIntermediate★ 212⑂ 89AI score 7/10Last updated: Aug 18, 2026

What it does

  • Gives Claude the accurate high-level API surface of the vastai / vastai_sdk Python package.
  • Covers the full instance lifecycle with code: searching offers, creating, start/stop/reboot/destroy, labeling, and fetching SSH/SCP connection strings.
  • Includes data movement (copy, cloud_copy), volumes and network volumes, serverless deployments, host machine listing, SSH keys, and team management.
  • Separates three layers: VastAI (high level), SyncClient/AsyncClient (typed low level), and Serverless (inference endpoints).
  • Calls out real pitfalls: spot rentals silently fall back to on-demand pricing unless you pass bid_price, and copying into /root or / breaks SSH permissions.

Who it's for

  • ML engineers and researchers renting GPUs on Vast.ai for training or inference.
  • MLOps folks scripting GPU provisioning pipelines.
  • Cost-conscious teams mixing interruptible and on-demand instances.

Example uses

  1. "Find the cheapest 4x RTX 4090 offer with reliability > 0.99 and launch it with the pytorch image" → search_offers then create_instance on the min dph_total.
  2. "Upload ./data to /workspace/data on instance 12345, then pull results back" → vast.copy("local:./data/", "C.12345:/workspace/data/") and the reverse.
  3. "Send a Qwen3-8B prompt to my serverless endpoint and print just the completion text" → async Serverless.request("/v1/completions", ...).

· · · Install guide · · ·

Try it now, no install

Paste this into Claude to use the skill without installing anything.

Read the instructions in this file and follow them to help me:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vast-ai/vast-cli/HEAD/vastai_sdk/SKILL.md

What I want: (describe your task here)

If Claude can't open the link, open it yourself and paste the contents instead.

↓ If it works for you, download the ZIP below and install it. Then it runs on its own — no pasting each time.

Install in the Claude app (no terminal)
  1. Download the ZIP with the button below.
  2. In Claude, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on 'Code execution and file creation'. (one time)
  3. Go to Customize → Skills → + → 'Upload a skill' and upload the ZIP.
↓ Download ZIP
Install in Claude Code

Let Claude do it — paste this into Claude Code

Install the skill I found on Claude Skill Mart.
Copy the vastai_sdk folder from the GitHub repo vast-ai/vast-cli into my ~/.claude/skills/vastai-sdk/.
When it's done, tell me in one line what this skill can do.

Install with a command instead

git clone https://github.com/vast-ai/vast-cli.git /tmp/vast-cli && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/vastai-sdk && cp /tmp/vast-cli/vastai_sdk/SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/vastai-sdk/

⚠ This is a third-party skill. Check the source repository before installing.

  1. Open a terminal and create the skills folder: mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
  2. Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/vast-ai/vast-cli.git /tmp/vast-cli
  3. Copy the skill file: mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/vastai-sdk && cp /tmp/vast-cli/vastai_sdk/SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/vastai-sdk/
  4. Install the Python package: pip install vastai (add serverless support with pip install "vastai[serverless]")
  5. Create an API key at https://console.vast.ai/manage-keys/ and save it to ~/.vast_api_key.
  6. Restart Claude Code and try a prompt like "search Vast.ai for RTX 4090 offers" to confirm the skill loads.
View source on GitHub ↗License: MIT