A production-grade Claude Code & OpenClaw skill for managing Cloudways infrastructure through the official Cloudways (Remote) MCP — connect directly to the hosted server, run one or many accounts, with a safety rule on every write.
This is not just a tool reference. It is an operational playbook for running Cloudways infrastructure responsibly: server and app monitoring, routine maintenance, client onboarding/audit, and automation — with write-confirmation guardrails on anything that changes state. The connection source of truth is the official Cloudways article.
These are the free skills behind Aura — one AI web-agency lifecycle you can run standalone or orchestrate across a whole client fleet from a single dashboard.
| Stage | Skill | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 🎨 Build | siteagent-elementor-studio | Design & build sites inside Elementor |
| 🔎 Audit + Content | wordpress-api-pro | REST content ops, SEO & site audits |
| 🖥 Host | cloudways-mcp ← you are here · hostinger-mcp | Provision & operate the infrastructure |
→ Orchestrate all of it across your client fleet with Aura — governed agent ops with approvals and a full audit trail on top of these skills.
This skill works standalone — point it at your own Cloudways account and run it from Claude Code. That's the solo path: you drive one account, and the write-confirmation guardrail on every state change keeps you safe.
The Aura path is the same skill orchestrated across a whole client fleet — Aura proxies these provider ops through its governed MCP gateway, adds queued human approvals and a full audit trail, and runs them across every server and app you manage from one dashboard, no per-account token juggling.
| Solo (this skill) | With Aura | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | one account you hold keys for | every client account in your org |
| Approvals | your own write-confirmation | queued admin approval + audit trail |
| Best for | your own infra, quick ops | agencies operating many clients |
Use it solo for your own boxes; reach for Aura when you operate a fleet on clients' behalf.
- ✅ Official Cloudways (Remote) MCP — connect directly to the hosted server at
mcp.cloudways.com; no self-hosting, no proxy to maintain. - ✅ Complete tool catalog (MCP v1.2, 244 tools) — servers, apps, services, DNS, CDN, Git, SSH keys, analytics, SSL / Let's Encrypt, IP whitelisting, Security Suite (malware/WAF), staging sync, team members, AgencyOS client billing (clients, services, plan prices, invoices, tax rates), all tagged R / W / W!. Billing runs through the live
agency_os_*tools — there is no separate Client Billing toolset. - ✅ Role-based Access Tokens — the skill guides token scoping (READ / LIMITED / FULL ACCESS) per connection, on top of its own write-confirmation discipline.
- ✅ Write-confirmation safety — every state-changing operation requires explicit target + action confirmation; destructive operations double-confirm.
- ✅ Multi-account — one connection per Cloudways account, each with its own prefix; no cross-account ID or credential mixing.
- ✅ Operational playbooks — monitoring, maintenance, client onboarding/audit, and n8n / Make / headless automation.
- ✅ Honest gaps — what the MCP still doesn't expose (SSH-key listing, backup listing,
customer_info) is flagged as Cloudways UI / direct-API, never faked.
.claude/skills/cloudways-mcp/
├── SKILL.md # core: safety rules, multi-account, confirmation, patterns
└── references/
├── installation.md # Claude connection (official MCP) + multi-account config
├── tools-catalog.md # official tool catalog, tagged R / W / W!
├── workflows-monitoring.md # monitoring scenarios (read-only)
├── workflows-maintenance.md # maintenance scenarios (write — requires confirmation)
├── workflows-onboarding.md # audit/onboarding for a new client
└── workflows-automation.md # n8n / Make / Claude Code headless / multi-account
- Write safety. Any tool that changes state requires explicit confirmation of the target and action (
SKILL.md); destructive operations (delete, restore, scale) double-confirm. The tool catalog is verified against the official article — seetools-catalog.mdfor the R / W / W! tags. - Multi-account. Each account is connected as a separate connection with its own prefix (
mcp__cloudways-clientA__*). The skill requires identifying the correct account before any operation, and prohibits mixing IDs/credentials across accounts. - Source of truth. If the catalog here conflicts with what the live MCP returns — the live MCP wins; update the catalog accordingly.
The skill activates automatically when Cloudways is discussed, as long as the skill is available and the MCP server is connected (the tools appear as mcp__cloudways*__*). For setup and connection — see installation.md and .mcp.json.example.
Zero-config connection via env var. The repo commits a .mcp.json whose token is the ${CLOUDWAYS_ACCESS_TOKEN:-} env placeholder — set the variable in your shell (devices) or in the claude.ai cloud environment's env vars (web/phone sessions), and the cloudways-env connection authenticates on its own. While the variable is unset the connection just shows as unavailable in /mcp (it can't authenticate) — set the var to bring it up. The name cloudways-env avoids shadowing the documented user-scope names — cloudways and cloudways-<client> — since project scope wins name collisions (don't reuse cloudways-env for a user-scope connection). Real tokens never go into the file — it is tracked in git. Migrating from a local gitignored .mcp.json: move your token to the env var (or claude mcp add -s user), delete the local file, then pull.
The official hosted MCP is at https://mcp.cloudways.com/mcp/. Authenticate with per-account request headers: X-Access-Token (a role-based Access Token — READ / LIMITED / FULL ACCESS) and X-Mcp-Host (the client name, e.g. claude-code). Generate the token at platform.cloudways.com → API section. One connection per account, named cloudways-<client>. (The legacy X-CW-Email/X-CW-Api-Key API-key flow is deprecated — the API key stops working on October 15, 2026.)
- How to Use Cloudways MCP Server for AI-Based Server Management (official — the source of truth for the connection)
- Cloudways MCP Server Tools (official — the source of truth for the tool catalog)
- Cloudways MCP v1.2 announcement (112 new tools, role-based Access Tokens)
- How to Create and Manage Cloudways API Access Tokens (token generation + roles)
- Cloudways API reference
The tool catalog is verified against the live MCP (all 22 toolsets enumerated on a connected account, 2026-07-20); content is sourced from the official MCP v1.2 support articles (2026-07-19). The article documents categories the live server does not expose — Bot Protection, Client Billing, CloudwaysCDN legacy, a "Lists API" — and those have been removed from the catalog. R/W/W! tags are this skill's operational assessment, not Cloudways labels. If the catalog ever conflicts with what the live
mcp__cloudways*__*tools return, the live MCP is authoritative.
- Repository: https://github.com/Digitizers/cloudways-mcp
- OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai
- Cloudways MCP article: https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/14654372-how-to-use-cloudways-mcp-server-for-ai-based-server-management
- Digitizer: https://www.digitizer.studio
- Getting started with Cloudways: https://www.digitizer.studio/cloudways-beginners-guide
MIT
Built with ❤️ for OpenClaw by Digitizer
The plugin ships its skill through a git symlink (skills/ → the in-repo
source). On Windows, enable Developer Mode and set
git config --global core.symlinks true before cloning or installing —
the plugin cache clone inherits it. Changing the config does not repair an
existing checkout (the repo may have recorded core.symlinks=false locally).
To repair one, run these two commands inside it (the second re-materializes
only the plugin's symlink entry, so nothing else in your working tree is
touched):
git config core.symlinks true
git checkout -- skills/cloudways-mcp
Or simply re-clone. WSL also works. macOS/Linux need nothing.