Lium GPU Cloud MCP server

Lium — Python SDK & CLI

lium.io is a Python package that provides both a command-line interface and a Python SDK for managing GPU pods on the Lium platform. Install it once — use whichever interface fits the job.

Lium

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Installation

Python package

pip install lium.io

Binary install (macOS amd64/arm64 / Linux amd64/arm64)

curl -fsSL https://lium.io/install.sh | bash

Fresh binary installs place a managed symlink at ~/.lium/bin/lium that points to a versioned binary under ~/.lium/versions//lium.

Quick Start

CLI

# First-time setup: create an account (mints and stores an API key) …
lium signup --email you@example.com
# … or link an existing account (opens a browser). Headless (agents, CI, containers): pass the key
# instead — lium init --api-key sk_...   (keys: https://lium.io/api-keys), or export LIUM_API_KEY and skip init.
lium init
lium balance

# List available nodes (GPU machines)
lium ls

# Price a job on node #1 before renting it (no API key needed)
lium quote 1 --hours 2

# Create a pod using node index
lium up 1  # Use node #1 from previous ls

# Or create a pod using filters
lium up --gpu A100  # Auto-select best A100 node

# List your pods
lium ps
lium ps --filter status=RUNNING --sort spent   # running pods, most expensive so far first
lium spend                                     # burn per hour, spend per pod, runway

# Copy files to pod
lium scp 1 ./my_script.py

# SSH into a pod
lium ssh <pod-name>

# Stop a pod — billing is per second and runs until you do this
lium rm <pod-name>

First hour on a pod

A few things that save time on a freshly rented pod (full version in docs/getting-started.rst):

• Always pass --ttl (or --until) to lium up; a pod bills until it is removed.
• The pod's local volume (/root on the standard templates; pod.volumepath in the SDK) is the only path lium bk can back up and the one encryption covers; an attached Volume is under /mnt; everything else (/workspace, /tmp) is plain container filesystem, neither encrypted nor backup-able. Keep weights, datasets and the Hugging Face cache on the volume: mkdir -p /root/hf /root/logs; export HFHOME=/root/hf HFHUBENABLEHFTRANSFER=1.
• Ubuntu 24.04 images: use a venv (python -m venv /root/venv) or export PIPBREAKSYSTEM_PACKAGES=1 before pip install.
• Blackwell GPUs (B200, B300, RTX PRO 6000, RTX 5090) need a cu128+ PyTorch build: pip install torch --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu130. FlashAttention-3 is Hopper-only; use FlashAttention-4 or cuDNN attention on Blackwell.
• Missing tools: apt-get update && apt-get install -y ffmpeg rsync.
• Background jobs: nohup setsid cmd > /root/logs/x.log 2>&1 < /dev/null &.
• Check utilisation: nvidia-smi --query-gpu=timestamp,index,utilization.gpu,memory.used --format=csv -l 5 > /root/logs/gpu.csv &.

SDK

The SDK mirrors the CLI's capabilities for programmatic use. Two entry points: the @lium.machine decorator for quickly offloading isolated functions, and the Lium() client for long-lived orchestration code.

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.