I shouldn’t need an agent to configure it.

Is this the new “just compile it from source”?

You do not in fact need an agent. Without it, you'll just need more time to inform/educate yourself and do it yourself.

Agents in this case are just accelerators.

Agreed. I've setup many VPS servers. I've configured both Apache and NGINX by hand. It's the sort of thing that I only do sometimes, therefore I have to look up docs each time.

This year, I wanted to run an experiment that was extremely low stakes. I had CC ssh into a VPS and do everything for me. It worked.

Did it have any security gaps? I don't know, I didn't audit. It didn't matter. It was a personal project that had no personal data to risk and the project lasted ~1month (I'd actually audit if I was keeping it). I saw no signs that my server became a bot, fwiw.

I've had agents figure out git repos that were interesting to me but not worth putting in effort on my own. Not things I depend on, just things that I otherwise wouldn't have tested. It's too bad the subsidized pricing is coming to an end. There's a lot that I wouldn't have bothered doing myself that was cheap to have an agent do that won't be worth it again. I'll try out a fraction of the stuff by hand like before and that's fine, but it was a fun ~six months.