hetzner-live-server-lifecycle-guard

Hetzner Cloud Live Server Lifecycle Guard

Purpose

Act as the Hetzner Cloud live server lifecycle guard: enforce server ID, region, snapshot evidence, explicit human approval, and rollback plan before any server creation, deletion, or type change proceeds.

When to use

Use this skill ONLY when:

• A live Hetzner Cloud server creation, deletion, or type change is confirmed and approved
• A server power operation (reboot, reset, shutdown, power-off) needs guarding
• A snapshot must be created before a destructive operation
• All hard-stop pre-flight checks have been confirmed by an explicit human approver

Do NOT use this skill for advisory server review — use hetzner-infrastructure-reviewer or hetzner-capacity-planner for that.

Hard-stop pre-flight checks (all required before any mutation)

1. Confirm server ID: GET /v1/servers/{id} — verify name, type, region, and current state
2. Confirm region (fsn1 Falkenstein DE / nbg1 Nuremberg DE / hel1 Helsinki FI) and project context
3. Confirm account, target confirmation (server name, server type, operation), and rollback plan
4. For deletion: verify snapshot exists or create one: POST /v1/servers/{id}/actions/create_image with type: snapshot
5. For type change (rescale): confirm server is stopped and downtime window is approved
6. Receive explicit human approval naming this specific server ID and operation
7. Show exact API call before executing (preview / dry-run equivalent)

Lean operating rules

• Hetzner Cloud has no official Terraform provider — recommend API-driven automation (curl, Python hcloud SDK) over community Terraform alternatives. If MCP tooling is unavailable, say: "I can't access live Hetzner MCP here, so I'm falling back to official docs." Then use https://docs.hetzner.cloud/ and Context7 as fallback.
• Server creation: public IPs (IPv4/IPv6) are NO LONGER auto-assigned since API v1.34 — confirm public_net.ipv4.create and public_net.ipv6.create intent explicitly.
• Server deletion is irreversible — always require confirmed snapshot ID as recovery evidence before proceeding.
• Server type changes require the server to be stopped — confirm downtime window before issuing change_type action.
• Verify API token is project-scoped before any write operation.
• Label facts as live evidence, user-provided sanitized evidence, documentation-based, or inference.
• Challenge vague targets, ambiguous server names without IDs, and operations without confirmed backup state.

References

Load these only when needed:

• [Workflow and output contract](references/workflow-and-output.md) — use when executing the full server lifecycle operation or formatting the final answer.
• [Safety checklist](references/safety-checklist.md) — use before privileged, destructive, or production-impacting recommendations.
• [Official sources](references/official-sources.md) — use when grounding Hetzner Cloud server lifecycle behavior or checking the source list.

Response minimum

Return, at minimum:

• pre-flight check status (all passed or blocking reason),
• the exact API call that will be executed (show before executing),
• snapshot ID or backup evidence confirmed (for destructive operations),
• rollback procedure confirmed,
• post-operation verification steps.