Cloud Run Instances: Your AI Agent’s Cozy Swamp Hut

Google Cloud just dropped a new toy for developers who want to run long-lived, stateful AI agents without burning cash on a 24/7 VM. Meet Cloud Run instances—a singleton compute runtime that’s like a cozy swamp hut for your personal AI sidekick.

Think of agents like OpenClaw or Hermes: they’re built for one user, work continuously, and don’t need the autoscaling circus of typical web services. Cloud Run services scale to zero when idle, which is great for stateless APIs but terrible for an agent that needs to stay awake. A dedicated VM? That’s paying for a full-time caiman when you just need a friendly capybara.

What Makes Cloud Run Instances Special?

• Singleton mode: Exactly one instance, no autoscaling drama.
• Up to 7-day continuous runtime with automatic restarts (so your agent doesn’t nap forever).
• Stable HTTPS URL that survives updates and restarts—no more chasing IPs.
• Stop and resume on demand—pause your agent when you’re offline, wake it when you’re back.

And the price? A mere $5.70 per month for 1 vCPU and 1 GiB of memory, running 24/7. That’s less than a swamp cooler rental. The shared vCPU with burst budgets means your agent can idle cheaply and spike when you actually ask it to do something.

Deploying OpenClaw in One Command

OpenClaw is an open-source personal AI agent that learns to help you better over time. Many folks start it on their laptop, then realize it dies every time they close the lid. With Cloud Run instances, you can give it a permanent home in the cloud.

After uploading your config to a Cloud Storage bucket, deploy with a single gcloud command:

gcloud beta run instances create openclaw-instance 
  --image ghcr.io/openclaw/openclaw:latest 
  --port 18789 
  --public 
  --add-volume mount-path=/home/node/.openclaw,type=cloud-storage,mount-options="uid=1000;gid=1000;file-mode=0700;dir-mode=0700",bucket=${BUCKET} 
  --set-env-vars "OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PASSWORD=${PASSWORD},GEMINI_API_KEY=${GEMINI_API_KEY}"

Once it’s up, your agent can chat with you over Telegram, WhatsApp, or any platform you fancy. Full instructions are in this codelab.

Early Adopters Are Loving It

OffDeal, an AI-powered investment bank for small businesses, is already using Cloud Run instances for their long-running agents. They report an 88% reduction in cold starts and call it “very straightforward and reliable.” That’s a solid endorsement from the swamp.

What’s Next?

SSH access for both instances and services is coming soon—sign up for private access if you want early entry. Cloud Run instances are currently in preview, so now’s the time to paddle in and test the waters.

For more details, check the official docs. And if you’re comparing hosting options, our Google Cloud review might help you see where this fits in the ecosystem.

Original announcement published on Google Cloud.