GCE Activation Runbook

Current Host

• Project: n8n-hosting-452913
• Instance: instance-20250306-165614
• Zone: us-central1-c
• Public IP: 34.27.189.109
• OS: Debian 12
• Machine: e2-medium, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM
• Prepared path: /srv/easier-hermes

Current Services

Observed before staging:

• n8n on port 5678.
• easier-done on port 8080.
• easier-marketing on port 3080.
• nginx on ports 80 and 443.

Current Hermes State

Prepared:

• /srv/easier-hermes/source/hermes-agent
• /srv/easier-hermes/data
• /srv/easier-hermes/vault
• /srv/easier-hermes/ops
• /srv/easier-hermes/audit

Inactive:

• No Hermes image.
• No Hermes container.
• No Hermes listening port.
• No gateway.
• No provider credentials.
• No connectors.
• No cron.

Before Any Activation

Run:

df -h /
free -h
docker ps
sudo ss -lntup
sudo find /srv/easier-hermes/audit -maxdepth 1 -type f -print

Confirm:

• At least 15 GB free disk or a decision to build elsewhere.
• n8n is healthy.
• Backups/snapshots are current.
• No major client work is happening on the host.

Build Image Later

Only during a maintenance window or on a roomier host:

cd /srv/easier-hermes/ops/deployment
sudo HERMES_BUILD_IMAGE=1 bash ./prepare-hermes-host.sh

Do not start the container yet.

Dry Config Check

cd /srv/easier-hermes/ops/deployment
sudo docker compose --profile activate config

Expected:

• No published ports.
• Command is interactive chat.
• Data mounted at /opt/data.
• Vault mounted at /vault.

First Interactive Start

Only after image exists and provider credentials are configured safely:

cd /srv/easier-hermes/ops/deployment
sudo docker compose --profile activate run --rm hermes

Do not use up -d initially.

Stop Conditions

Stop if:

• Disk drops below 5 GB free.
• Swap climbs heavily while n8n is active.
• Any new public port appears.
• Hermes asks for broad connector permissions.
• Any secret would need to be pasted into chat or committed to Git.