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Lowkey deploys a self-hosted AI coding agent to your AWS account. The installer handles everything: VPC, EC2 instance, IAM role, and agent bootstrap. All you need is AWS credentials and about ten minutes.
Deploy Lowkey in a dedicated sandbox AWS account. The builder profile gets AdministratorAccess. LLMs make mistakes — a sandbox limits the blast radius. Never deploy into a production account.

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Prerequisites

Before running the installer, confirm you have the following:
1

AWS credentials configured

Run the command below. It must return your account ID without errors.
aws sts get-caller-identity
If you see an error, run aws configure or set AWS_PROFILE to a profile with admin access on your sandbox account.
2

A supported shell

The installer works in bash, zsh, and AWS CloudShell. If you’re using CloudShell, your credentials are already configured — you can skip the step above.
3

Bedrock access in your region (most packs)

OpenClaw, Claude Code, NemoClaw, Hermes, Pi, and IronClaw all use Amazon Bedrock. Make sure your account has model access enabled for the region you plan to deploy into.
Codex CLI (OpenAI) and Kiro CLI (Kiro cloud) do not use Bedrock. If you pick either of those, you can skip this step.

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Interactive install

Run the one-liner below. The installer walks you through four choices — install mode, agent pack, permission profile, and deploy method — then provisions everything automatically. 
curl -sfL install.lowkey.run | bash
When prompted, you’ll choose:
  1. Install mode — Simple (recommended) or Advanced. Simple asks only for pack and profile, then auto-configures everything else. See Simple-mode defaults for what gets decided for you.
  2. Agent pack — the AI agent runtime to install (OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex CLI, Kiro CLI, NemoClaw, Hermes, Pi, or IronClaw).
  3. Profile — the IAM permission level for the agent’s EC2 instance.
  4. Deploy method — CloudFormation (default) or Terraform.

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Non-interactive install

Pass -y (or --non-interactive) with --pack and --profile to skip all prompts. This is useful for scripts, CI pipelines, or repeatable setups.
Full stateful agent with persistent memory, 24/7 gateway, and multi-channel access (Telegram, Discord, Slack). Gets AdministratorAccess.
curl -sfL install.lowkey.run | bash -s -- -y \
  --pack openclaw \
  --profile builder

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CLI flags reference

FlagValuesDescription
-y, --non-interactive, --yes—Skip all prompts; accept defaults
--pack <name>openclaw, claude-code, codex-cli, kiro-cli, nemoclaw, hermes, pi, ironclawAgent pack to deploy
--profile <name>builder, account_assistant, personal_assistantIAM permission profile
--method <name>cfn, terraform / tfDeploy method (default: cfn)
--simple—Force simple install mode
--advanced—Force advanced install mode
--kiro-from-secret <id|arn>Secrets Manager ID or ARNKiro API key for headless Kiro CLI deploys

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What happens after you run the installer

The installer creates your infrastructure and boots the agent in four stages:
A new VPC (10.0.0.0/16), public subnet (10.0.1.0/24), internet gateway, security group, and IAM instance profile are created in your account. The EC2 instance size depends on your profile: t4g.xlarge for builder, t4g.medium for assistant profiles. All instances are arm64 Graviton.
The instance installs Node.js via mise, clones the Lowkey repo, and dispatches to the selected pack’s install.sh. CloudFormation (or Terraform) waits for a success signal before marking the stack complete.
Each pack follows its own install logic — systemd service, CLI binary, or both. OpenClaw and NemoClaw install as systemd services; Claude Code and Codex CLI install as CLI tools you run interactively.
Security Hub, GuardDuty, Inspector, IAM Access Analyzer, and AWS Config recorder are enabled automatically. The personal_assistant profile skips all security services.
SSH is disabled by default. Connect using AWS Systems Manager:
aws ssm start-session --target <instance-id> --region <your-region>
Find the instance ID in the CloudFormation stack Outputs tab, or run:
aws ec2 describe-instances \
  --filters "Name=tag:loki:managed,Values=true" \
  --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].InstanceId" \
  --output text

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Verify your install

Once the stack reaches CREATE_COMPLETE, SSM into the instance and run the version check for your pack: 
openclaw --version
# Then launch the TUI:
openclaw tui

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Run the essential bootstraps

After connecting to your agent for the first time, run the essential bootstraps. They configure skills, memory management, coding standards, and security practices — and significantly reduce agent mistakes. Paste this into your agent chat: 
Lowkey please bootstrap yourself based on this url https://github.com/inceptionstack/lowkey/tree/main/bootstraps/essential
See Essential bootstraps for the full list of what gets configured.

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Risks

Read this section before deploying, especially if you’re using the builder profile.
The builder profile gives your agent AdministratorAccess to your AWS account. That’s what makes it useful — and what makes it dangerous:
  • LLMs make mistakes. They can misconfigure IAM policies, delete resources, create overly permissive security groups, or run up costs with unintended resource creation. This will happen eventually.
  • Admin access means admin-level damage. If the model hallucinates a destructive command, it has the permissions to execute it. There is no approval gate by default.
  • Non-deterministic behavior. The same prompt can produce different infrastructure on different days. Not all changes are reversible.
  • Lowkey is not a security product. It can surface GuardDuty and Security Hub findings, but an LLM summarizing alerts is not the same as a security team.
Recommended mitigations:
  1. Use a dedicated sandbox account. This is the single most important thing you can do. One account = one blast radius.
  2. Set AWS Budgets alerts from day one.
  3. Review CloudTrail periodically — every API call the agent makes is logged there.
  4. Start small. Build a simple app before asking the agent to design a multi-service platform.

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Clean up

To remove a Lowkey deployment and all resources it created, run the uninstaller. It finds deployments by tag, lets you pick which to remove, and handles both CloudFormation and Terraform. 
curl -sfL uninstall.lowkey.run | bash
To remove a specific stack manually: 
# CloudFormation
aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name <your-stack-name> --region <your-region>

# Terraform
terraform destroy
The uninstaller also offers to remove Terraform state buckets and DynamoDB lock tables if they exist. Any Bedrock inference charges stop when the instance terminates.