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Merv provisions one SSH-reachable runtime per request through a provider-neutral backend. Ten providers are configured per project under Settings → Compute (save, verify, enable, daily USD limit); Modal only through environment variables on the brain. Self-hosted brains can set any of them by environment variable. Agents pick a provider per request with sandbox.request(provider=...); sandbox.options tags every hardware option with the provider that serves it. Sandbox ids are stored as <provider>:<native_id>, so every later operation routes to the owning provider. Terminate a provider’s sandboxes before removing it from the configuration — ids of a removed provider become unroutable on purpose (failing loudly beats stranding a billing VM). All VM providers bootstrap the same way: authorize the caller’s public key and the brain’s management key, install the rec.sh transcript wrapper and merv_run, then install the ML toolchain in a second phase. Secrets such as HF_TOKEN are pushed post-boot over the management SSH channel, never embedded in provider user data.
On every VM provider a stopped machine still bills its disks. Only termination stops charges — which is what release does.

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Self-host: selecting providers

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Per-provider details

  • Env: MERV_LAMBDA_API_KEY (or LAMBDA_LABS_API_KEY / LAMBDA_API_KEY); optional MERV_LAMBDA_REGION, MERV_LAMBDA_INSTANCE_TYPE.
  • Credentials: cloud.lambda.ai → API keys → Generate. Pay-as-you-go with a card on file.
  • Quirks: fixed SKUs (gpu_1x_a10, …); live capacity via the instance-types API; deep A10/A100/H100 stock.
  • Env: MERV_THUNDER_API_KEY (or THUNDER_COMPUTE_API_KEY / TNR_API_TOKEN).
  • Quirks: virtualized GPUs behind a port-forwarded SSH endpoint; bootstrap pushed over SSH. Cheap A100 capacity; prototyping-mode instances can be slow for sustained training.
  • Env: MERV_HYPERSTACK_API_KEY (or HYPERSTACK_API_KEY) and MERV_HYPERSTACK_ENVIRONMENT; optional MERV_HYPERSTACK_IMAGE (default Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat)), MERV_HYPERSTACK_FLAVOR.
  • Credentials: console.hyperstack.cloud → add credit → Settings → API Keys. Create an environment once (it pins the region) and put its name in MERV_HYPERSTACK_ENVIRONMENT.
  • Quirks: VMs have zero inbound ports by default — Merv attaches a TCP-22 ingress rule at create. Login user ubuntu. SHUTOFF still bills.
  • Env: MERV_DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN (or DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN / DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN); optional MERV_DIGITALOCEAN_IMAGE (default gpu-h100x1-base), MERV_DIGITALOCEAN_REGION.
  • Credentials: cloud.digitalocean.com → API → Tokens → full access. GPU sizes stay hidden until the one-time GPU unlock (Create → GPU Droplets).
  • Quirks: no A100s (H100/H200/L40S/RTX-Ada); user_data caps at 64 KiB; hourly billing with monthly cap.
  • Env: MERV_VERDA_CLIENT_ID + MERV_VERDA_CLIENT_SECRET (or DATACRUNCH_CLIENT_ID/DATACRUNCH_CLIENT_SECRET); optional MERV_VERDA_IMAGE (default ubuntu-24.04), MERV_VERDA_LOCATION (e.g. FIN-01), MERV_VERDA_API_BASE.
  • Credentials: cloud.datacrunch.io → Keys → REST API credentials (OAuth2 client id + secret).
  • Quirks: SSH keys and the bootstrap script are pre-registered account resources; offline instances keep billing their OS volume.
  • Env: MERV_VOLTAGE_PARK_TOKEN (or VOLTAGE_PARK_TOKEN).
  • Credentials: dashboard.voltagepark.com → developer settings → API token.
  • Quirks: H100-SXM5-only, sold as instant-deploy presets (the preset uuid is the instance_type). Stopped VMs still hold storage.
  • Env: MERV_TENSORDOCK_TOKEN (or TENSORDOCK_TOKEN); optional MERV_TENSORDOCK_IMAGE (default ubuntu2404).
  • Credentials: dashboard.tensordock.com → Developer Settings → API token. Prepaid balance (min $1).
  • Quirks: marketplace of third-party hosts; only locations with a dedicated IP are offered; no billing API, so the provision-time quote is the recorded rate.
  • Env: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID + AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY (or MERV_AWS_*), optional AWS_SESSION_TOKEN; MERV_AWS_REGION (default us-east-1); optional MERV_AWS_IMAGE_ID, MERV_AWS_INSTANCE_TYPE, MERV_AWS_VOLUME_GIB (default 200). With no keys set, boto3’s default chain applies.
  • Deps: pip install 'merv[aws]' (boto3; included in the control extra).
  • Quirks: bootstrap pushed over management SSH (user_data caps at 16 KiB); default image is the newest Deep Learning Base GPU AMI; a shared merv-sandbox-ssh security group is created once. Fresh accounts have a zero vCPU quota for G/P families — request it under Service Quotas. Prices unknown (no EC2 pricing in the API).
  • Env: MERV_GCP_PROJECT (or GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT); MERV_GCP_ZONE (default us-central1-a); GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS or ambient ADC; optional MERV_GCP_MACHINE_TYPE, MERV_GCP_IMAGE_PROJECT/MERV_GCP_IMAGE_FAMILY, MERV_GCP_BOOT_DISK_GIB (default 200).
  • Deps: pip install 'merv[gcp]'.
  • Quirks: GPU-bundled machine types only (a2/a3/g2); shared merv-sandbox-allow-ssh firewall rule created once per project; fresh projects have a zero GPU quota (GPUS_ALL_REGIONS). If the default DLVM image family 404s, override MERV_GCP_IMAGE_FAMILY.
  • Env: MERV_AZURE_TENANT_ID, MERV_AZURE_CLIENT_ID, MERV_AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET, MERV_AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID (AZURE_* accepted); MERV_AZURE_LOCATION (default eastus); optional MERV_AZURE_VM_SIZE, MERV_AZURE_IMAGE (default microsoft-dsvm:ubuntu-hpc:2204:latest), MERV_AZURE_OS_DISK_GIB (default 200).
  • Credentials: az ad sp create-for-rbac --role Contributor --scopes /subscriptions/<id>.
  • Quirks: each sandbox is its own resource group (rp-<uid>-rg), so terminate is one atomic delete. Fresh subscriptions have a zero vCPU quota for GPU families.
Adding a provider to Merv itself: implement one sandbox/adapters/<provider>.py, expose one lazy builder, register one SandboxDriverDescriptor, and pass the shared conformance tests. See the repo’s merv/docs/SANDBOX_PROVIDERS.md.