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Any machine that runs workloads directly (a bare VM, a workstation, a remote GPU box) is a compute in Expanse. One daemon runs on the host and reports host, GPU, and process telemetry. The console’s Add compute panel and expanse compute register show the short-lived install token plus your deployment’s control-plane and data-plane URLs, which this guide’s commands take. The token is prompted for during install; it never goes on a command line.

Prefer to delegate? Copy this into an AI assistant with shell access on the host; it fetches this guide itself, so it always follows the current steps.

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1. Register the compute

In the console, open Compute → Add compute, pick VM / generic, and generate an install token.

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2. Exchange the token on the host

On the host, using the control-plane and data-plane URLs from the Add compute panel. This installs the CLI if the host does not have it, then exchanges the token and writes the daemon config:
This writes the compute’s long-lived credential to ~/.expanse/config.json (mode 0600). If the install fails before the config is written, rerun it with the same token; retry stops working at the compute’s first heartbeat or when the token expires.

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3. Run the daemon

Download the daemon binary and start it:
For unattended hosts, run it under your service manager (a systemd unit with Restart=on-failure is the usual shape). The daemon reads ~/.expanse/config.json by default; set EXPANSE_DAEMON_CONFIG to point a system service at a different path.

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4. Verify

The compute flips to active in the console at exchange time and shows its first heartbeat within a minute of the daemon starting.