Moved My Claude Code Bot to a VPS — Here Are the 4 Things That Broke

The bot ran perfectly on Windows with PM2. Claude Code took tasks over Telegram, created git branches, committed files, and sent approval buttons. Worked great locally.

Then I moved it to a Linux VPS to run 24/7 — so the bot would work when my laptop was off, from anywhere, not just from my home network.

Four things broke. Every single one was a different system — Claude Code, the project trust system, git, and GitHub auth. Each took about two minutes to fix once I understood what was happening.

Here’s the full sequence.

What I Was Moving

A Node.js Telegram bot running on the server via PM2. When you send it a message, it runs claude --resume <session_id> -p "your message" in the project directory. Claude Code reads the codebase, does the work, commits to a branch, and the bot sends you Approve/Reject buttons.

The bot itself was already on the server. The project was cloned. PM2 was running it. And then I tried the Summarize Session → Blog Post Draft flow.

Error 1: --dangerously-skip-permissions blocked on root

What I saw:

--dangerously-skip-permissions cannot be used with root/sudo privileges for security reasons

Why it happens:

The bot was spawning Claude with --dangerously-skip-permissions to avoid interactive permission prompts. Claude Code deliberately blocks this flag when the process is running as root. The reasoning is sound — unrestricted file operations as root can do real damage.

The fix:

Remove --dangerously-skip-permissions from the claude spawn command. Instead, configure permissions.allow in .claude/settings.json with the specific tools Claude needs. The flag was a shortcut — the right answer is explicit permission grants.

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "Bash(git add:*)",
      "Bash(git commit:*)",
      "Bash(git checkout:*)",
      "Bash(git merge:*)",
      "Bash(git push:*)",
      "Bash(git status:*)",
      "Bash(git log:*)",
      "Bash(git diff:*)",
      "Bash(git branch:*)",
      "Bash(npm run build:*)",
      "Bash(npm run dev:*)",
      "Write(*)",
      "Edit(*)",
      "Read(*)"
    ]
  }
}

This is actually better than --dangerously-skip-permissions — it’s scoped. Claude can only do what the bot actually needs.

Error 2: Project not trusted

What I saw:

Ignoring 4 permissions.allow entries from .claude/settings.json: this workspace has not been trusted.
Run Claude Code interactively here once and accept the trust dialog, or set
projects["/opt/bilal/bilalmeccai.com"].hasTrustDialogAccepted: true in /root/.claude.json

Why it happens:

Claude Code shows a one-time trust dialog when you open a project for the first time. It’s interactive — you press enter to accept. On a headless server running a bot, there’s no terminal to press enter in. The bot spawns Claude in non-interactive mode, the trust check fires, and it ignores all the permissions.allow entries as a result.

The fix:

Write the trust acceptance directly to /root/.claude.json:

cat > /tmp/trust.js << 'EOF'
const f = '/root/.claude.json';
const fs = require('fs');
let d = {};
try { d = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(f, 'utf8')); } catch(_) {}
if (!d.projects) d.projects = {};
d.projects['/opt/bilal/bilalmeccai.com'] = { hasTrustDialogAccepted: true };
fs.writeFileSync(f, JSON.stringify(d, null, 2));
console.log('Done:', JSON.stringify(d.projects, null, 2));
EOF
node /tmp/trust.js

The script is written to a file first because bash’s history expansion breaks on ! inside double-quoted strings — !d.projects triggers it and you get -bash: !d.projects: event not found. Writing to a file and running with node sidesteps that completely.

Error 3: git has no identity

What I saw:

Commit failed: *** Please tell me who you are.

Run
  git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
  git config --global user.name "Your Name"

Why it happens:

Claude ran, wrote the file, and the bot tried to commit. Git requires a name and email to create a commit. On a fresh VPS, this is never set. On Windows/Mac you usually configure this once during git install and forget about it.

The fix:

git config --global user.email "bilalmeccai@gmail.com"
git config --global user.name "bilalmeccai"

Two commands, done. The --global flag writes to ~/.gitconfig so it applies to all repos on the server.

Error 4: git can’t push without auth

What I saw:

After fixing the commit identity, the bot committed successfully — and then failed to push the branch. GitHub requires authentication. SSH keys or HTTPS with a PAT.

The fix:

Generate a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) with repo scope only:

GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Tokens (classic)
→ Generate new token → tick: repo (full) → Generate

Then embed it in the remote URL:

cd /opt/bilal/bilalmeccai.com
git remote set-url origin https://YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_PAT@github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/your-repo.git

Verify it works:

git fetch origin

If that returns cleanly, auth is working. The bot can now push branches.

The pattern

Looking at these four errors together — they’re all the same class of problem. Each one is a system that was configured interactively on Windows (once, years ago, and forgotten) that had no configuration at all on a fresh server.

None of them were Claude Code bugs. None were bot bugs. They were all missing configuration for a headless environment.

This is the pattern with server deployments: the things that “just work” locally are things that were configured once and forgotten. Servers start blank.

Final state

After all four fixes, the flow runs end to end:

Telegram message
       ↓
bot.cjs spawns: claude --resume <id> -p "message"
       ↓
Claude reads project, writes files
       ↓
git add -A && git commit -m "feat: ..."
       ↓
git push origin feat/branch-name
       ↓
Bot sends: [✅ Approve & Deploy] [📋 Diff] [❌ Reject]
       ↓
Tap Approve → git merge → git push origin main → Vercel deploys

Always-on, works from anywhere. No laptop required.

If you’re setting up a similar Claude Code bot on a server and hitting something outside these four — different Linux distro, different PM2 setup, different git hosting — reach out at bilalmeccai.com/#contact.

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