VPS Service Status

Quick health checks over SSH for a VPS that hosts Docker services.

Safety invariant

Direct ssh commands in this skill must be read-only. Any command that changes state (sudo, systemctl, docker compose up/down/restart, prune, etc.) goes through the clipboard so the user pastes it manually. This keeps the skill safe to run without per-command confirmation. Do not relax this rule when extending the skill.

Configuration

This skill assumes:

• An SSH alias is configured in ~/.ssh/config for the VPS (so ssh <alias> connects without further flags). Below, <vps-host> is a placeholder for that alias — replace with whatever you use (e.g. hetzner, prod, myvps).
• Services are managed with docker compose and live under a known root such as /var/services/<service>/ or /srv/<service>/. Adjust paths to match your VPS.
• The clipboard helper is pbcopy (macOS). On Linux substitute xclip -selection clipboard or wl-copy.

If the user has not told you their SSH alias or service root, ask once before running.

System Overview (direct, read-only)

ssh <vps-host> "echo '=== Containers ===' && docker ps --format 'table {{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}' && echo && echo '=== Disk ===' && df -h / && echo && echo '=== Memory ===' && free -h"

Containers (direct, read-only)

ssh <vps-host> "docker ps --format 'table {{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}\t{{.Ports}}'"
ssh <vps-host> "cd /var/services/<service> && docker compose logs --tail 30"

System Services (clipboard — needs sudo)

sudo over a non-interactive SSH command will fail (no TTY for the password prompt), so these are copied to the clipboard for the user to paste after SSH'ing in manually:

echo 'sudo systemctl status <unit> --no-pager' | pbcopy
echo 'sudo systemctl status caddy --no-pager' | pbcopy
echo 'sudo systemctl status webhook --no-pager' | pbcopy

Recent Deployments (clipboard — needs sudo)

echo 'sudo journalctl -u <unit> --since "1 hour ago" | grep -E "(Starting|finished|ERROR)"' | pbcopy

Detailed Checks

• Resource monitoring (disk, memory, CPU, network): references/resources.md
• Per-service health endpoint patterns: references/service-checks.md