Deploy from Claude & Cursor — to your own server

Vibe-code an app with Claude Code or Cursor, then let the same agent ship it — over MCP — to infrastructure you own. Unlike hosted "chat-to-URL" services, your code and your model API keys never leave your box. AppCrane is the enterprise, self-hosted home for the apps your AI builds and your AI deploys.

The loop: build with your agent, deploy with your agent

The workflow people actually want from AI coding is a straight line: describe the app, watch the agent write it, and get a live URL — without babysitting a CI pipeline or clicking through a cloud console. Hosted tools deliver that line by running everything on their cloud. That's fine for a throwaway demo. It's a non-starter the moment the app touches customer data, internal APIs, or your model keys.

AppCrane keeps the same one-command feel but flips where it runs. Your agent talks to an AppCrane instance on your Ubuntu server through the Model Context Protocol. It creates the app, pushes the code the agent just wrote, deploys to a sandbox, and — when you say so — promotes to production with a zero-downtime swap. Every step is a normal MCP tool call, so the agent narrates exactly what it's doing and you approve as you go.

Set it up in five steps

1. 1 · Install AppCrane

   On a fresh Ubuntu server you control, run the one-liner. It brings up Docker isolation, the Caddy reverse proxy with automatic HTTPS, and the AppCrane control plane.

   # on your Ubuntu server
   curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gitayg/appCrane/main/install.sh | sudo bash

2. 2 · Get your MCP key

   Sign in to your AppCrane dashboard and generate a per-user MCP API key. This key is what binds every agent action to you for the audit log — deploys, secret writes, and access changes are all recorded against the token that made them.

3. 3 · Connect the agent over MCP

   Two ways to wire up Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP client. The standalone connector proxies to your instance:

   # the standalone MCP connector — proxies to your AppCrane box
   APPCRANE_URL=https://your-server.example.com \
   APPCRANE_KEY=your_mcp_key \
   npx appcrane-mcp

   Or connect the client straight to the HTTP endpoint with a config block:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "appcrane": {
         "type": "http",
         "url": "https://your-server.example.com/api/mcp",
         "headers": { "X-API-Key": "your_mcp_key" }
       }
     }
   }

   Restart the client and it will list the 59 appcrane_* tools.

4. 4 · Tell the agent to deploy to sandbox

   No new commands to learn — just ask:

   You: Deploy this app to AppCrane sandbox and give me the URL.

   The agent creates the app (or a managed repo if you don't want a GitHub account in the loop), pushes the code, runs the Nixpacks build for whatever language you wrote it in, and returns the live sandbox URL. Auto-HTTPS is already handled.

5. 5 · Promote to production

   Kick the tires on the sandbox. When it's right:

   You: Looks good — promote it to production.

   The agent promotes the exact build you tested to the production environment with a zero-downtime deploy. Same artifact, no rebuild-drift, on your domain with TLS.

What you get that hosted tools can't give you

Frequently asked

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