A VPN fleet in 50 countries
I needed download speed and latency numbers from fifty countries. By hand it is weeks. With the agent, the fleet of VPN servers was set up in ten minutes, the tests ran for a few hours, and the servers were gone again for pennies.
- Where
- In the terminal, with Claude Code
- Size
- A quick one
- Short link
- piy.show/s105
Speed numbers from fifty countries
About two weeks before this Short, I had to build a VPN fleet. A lot of computers, each with its own VPN configuration, because we had to test the download speed and the latency from different locations all over the world. Fifty different countries.
The job itself is not clever. It is the same thing fifty times, in fifty places, and then a few hours of waiting. That is exactly the kind of job that used to need a plan and a week.
Why did this need fifty servers? Prompt it yourself
I need to measure download speed and latency from many countries. Tell me the simplest way to get a server in each one, and what it would cost per hour.
Not by hand, and not a program either
The two old options were both bad. Configure fifty servers one by one, and I would have gone mad. Write a piece of software to do it, and that would have taken a very long time for a test that runs once.
This is the trap with one-off jobs. The manual way is too slow, and the proper way is too expensive for something you will throw away. So the job does not get done, or it gets done badly.
The agent is the third option. It writes the throwaway program for you, runs it, and nobody has to maintain it afterwards.
When is a throwaway script the right tool? Prompt it yourself
Write the script that sets up the fleet, run it, and keep a log of every server it creates so we can delete them all later.
Ten minutes to set up, a few hours of tests
With the agent writing and running the code, the setup took ten minutes. Then we tested for two or three hours, from every location, into one result.
In the old days this would have been weeks, mostly planning. The agent skips the planning because a wrong first try costs minutes, not days. You see the result, you fix the ask, you run it again.
How did the setup take only ten minutes? Prompt it yourself
Run the speed and latency test from every server, every ten minutes for three hours, and put the results in one table by country.
I can help you build yours
I build things like this with an AI agent, on my own computer. In a private session I help you do the same with your idea. Or bring it to the show, free.
Then take it all down
When the tests were done, we decommissioned every server. The whole fleet cost pennies, because it only existed for an afternoon.
That is the habit to copy. Infrastructure for a question, not for a product. Build it, ask the question, delete it, and keep the table. The next question gets a fresh fleet.
Why delete the servers straight after? Prompt it yourself
Delete every server you created, confirm that none are left, and show me the final cost.
Start with your own one-off job
Pick the job you have been avoiding because it is the same thing many times over. Describe it once, and let the agent write and run the throwaway program. Then throw it away.
What do I do next? Prompt it yourself
Here is a job I have to do many times over, once. Write the script, run it, show me the result, and clean up after yourself.
Do it in the terminal
I do this with Claude Code, the AI agent in the terminal. It works in a folder on your own computer, so it reads your files every time and can look things up for you.
A web chat works too, but there you paste everything in again in every new chat.
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Get Claude Code
It comes with Claude Pro, US$20 a month, paid to Anthropic. Claude's plans
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Make a folder for it, and open it
mkdir -p ~/projects/my-fleet && cd ~/projects/my-fleet
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Start the agent
claude
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Ask it
I need download speed and latency measured from 50 countries. Create a server in each one, set up a VPN on each, run the tests from every location into one table, then delete every server and show me the total cost.
Never opened a terminal? In a private session I put Claude Code on your computer with you, and you start your first idea.
Prompty