What an AI really does on a server, measured
Three runs of Claude Code with AskYourStack on fresh servers, written up with their real numbers and what went wrong. Customer stories join them as customers agree to share theirs.
From an empty Rocky Linux VPS to a live Magento shop
from a raw server to a shop answering over HTTPS
tool calls
steps that would have waited for approval in normal mode
The setup
A fresh Rocky Linux 10 server at Hetzner, nothing installed. Claude Code (Sonnet 5.5) with AskYourStack connected, asked to set it up for a Magento 2 shop and keep it safe.
What happened
- It read the server's facts, fetched the server-setup and magento playbooks and sized the stack for the machine.
- It installed nginx, PHP-FPM, MariaDB, OpenSearch 3.9 and Valkey, then Mage-OS 3.5 in production mode, with cron and a Let's Encrypt certificate.
- OpenSearch 2.x packages failed the signature check on Rocky 10; Claude refused to bypass the check and used 3.x, which passes. In normal safety mode about seven of the run's steps (package removals, deletes, securing MariaDB) wait for approval on askyourstack.com.
What we learned
The MCP instructions alone did not make the AI fetch the playbooks; a pointer at the end of server_facts did. Since then every setup starts from the same tested guide.
Moving a live shop to a new server with 56 seconds of downtime
start to finish
maintenance window
copied server to server at 26 MB/s
The setup
The Magento shop from the first test, moved to a second raw Rocky Linux 10 server. A fresh Claude Code session with both servers connected, following the migrate playbook.
What happened
- It built a matching stack on the new server, with the same versions as the old one.
- Files and the database went directly between the two servers over a short-lived, locked-down link; nothing passed through AskYourStack.
- It took a final catch-up copy in a 56-second maintenance window, reindexed, tested the new server before DNS moved, and closed the links. 99 tool calls in all.
What we learned
The old server stays untouched as the way back until you decide otherwise; that is what makes a short window safe to try.
Cleaning a hacked shop, including the attack it first missed
planted attacks removed in the first run
and 16 tool calls
after the fix we shipped the same day
The setup
A Mage-OS test shop with five planted attacks: PHP in the media folder, PHP hidden in an .ico file, a hidden request-driven backdoor, a script in the page head and a curl-to-shell cron job. A fresh Claude Code session was told only "my shop was hacked".
What happened
- It fetched the malware-cleanup playbook by itself and took a snapshot before touching anything.
- It found and removed four of the five, in about 3 minutes and 16 calls.
- It missed the PHP inside the .ico because the scan ran longer than the AI client waited. We moved the scan into a background job the same day; it now finds all five.
What we learned
We publish the miss because it is the useful part: a scan the AI cannot wait for is a scan that did not happen. Long work now always runs as a job the AI checks on.
Try it on your own server
Start free with one server in read-only mode. Your AI can look, explain and diagnose, and changes nothing until you upgrade and open a change window.
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