How to Host OpenClaw and Hermes 24/7 on Upstash Box
AI infrastructure is moving fast. New gateways, new agent frameworks, new runtimes. The hard part is no longer finding the right tool. It's finding a stable place to run it.
Today we're publishing setup guides for running OpenClaw and Hermes on Box, two tools that make a lot more sense in a persistent cloud environment than on a local machine or a traditional server.
The tools
OpenClaw is an AI gateway that centralizes your LLM provider connections behind a single interface. It runs as a background service with a web dashboard for managing your routing and configuration. You set it up once and leave it running.
Hermes is an open-source agent framework from Nous Research. It's resource-intensive and needs a real machine with enough CPU and memory to install and run well.
Why not local
The easy path is running these on your own machine, but it comes with real limitations.
Your laptop goes to sleep and OpenClaw's gateway goes offline with it. Hermes gets interrupted mid-task. Every time your machine restarts you're back to setup again.
There's also the matter of security. OpenClaw manages your LLM provider API keys and Hermes runs agent tasks autonomously. Giving them your own machine means any mistake they make lands directly on your filesystem. And you can't reach a local machine from another device without jumping through extra hoops.
Why not a traditional server
A cloud VM is the obvious alternative and it does solve the persistence problem, but it comes with its own overhead.
You pay for the server around the clock whether OpenClaw is handling requests or Hermes is idle. You manage the machine yourself, updates, security, disk space, all of it. You're paying for the full instance even when it's not actively doing anything.
For tools you just want running, that overhead adds up fast.
Why Box
Box is a persistent cloud computer that bills on active CPU usage, not uptime. It stays available, accessible from anywhere over SSH, and when your tools are idle you're not paying for a running server.
OpenClaw
OpenClaw needs to be always on since requests can come in at any time. On Box you enable keep-alive and the box stays running between sessions, just like a server would.
The dashboard is accessible through the SSH connection so there's nothing publicly exposed. You open it in your browser as if it were running on your own machine, but it's actually running securely on the box, no public IP or firewall rules needed.
Your API keys are configured once during setup and stay inside the box's isolated environment. Nothing outside the box can reach them. When OpenClaw is waiting between requests it's barely using any compute so the cost stays low.
You can also use the box to run bots on top of OpenClaw. Because the box stays on, those bots are up and reachable around the clock without any babysitting.
Hermes
Hermes has a bigger install, since it pulls substantial dependencies. The Small size (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 10 GB disk) is enough to run it, and a keep-alive Small box is a flat $8 a month.
You install Hermes once and it stays. The next time you connect, everything is exactly where you left it. The box holds its state between sessions until you decide to delete it.
Hermes runs agent tasks that execute code and interact with the system, so isolation matters. If something goes wrong during a run the damage is contained to the box and your own machine is never involved.
The same goes for any bots or automations you build with Hermes. Once they're running on the box they stay running, no local machine to keep awake and no process that disappears when you close your laptop.
If you ever want a clean copy of the setup ready to spin up again later, Box snapshots let you capture the environment at any point and restore from it instantly.
Set it up
Both setups run entirely inside the box. If you haven't created one yet, the Box quickstart takes about a minute.
FAQ
How do I host OpenClaw 24/7?
Run it on a machine that never sleeps instead of your laptop or a Mac mini. On Upstash Box you install OpenClaw inside a box by following the OpenClaw guide, and it stays reachable from your messaging apps while your own computer is off.
How do I keep Hermes Agent running all the time?
The same way: install it in a box with the Hermes guide. Set keepAlive: true so the box never pauses, and an init command can start the gateway again whenever the box boots.
How much does it cost to keep a personal agent always on?
A keep-alive box is a flat $8 a month for the small size, and it's what a chat assistant needs. Gateways like Telegram's poll for new messages from inside the box, so a box that has paused can't receive a message or wake itself up. Use a default box, which pauses when idle and bills only active CPU, for work you start yourself, not for an assistant that has to answer messages.
Is it safe to give OpenClaw or Hermes shell access?
Safer in a box than on your own machine. Each box is an isolated container that cannot reach your files, your private network or other boxes, so a bad command is contained to a disposable machine you can restore from a snapshot.