How to Run Everything Claude Code (ECC) on a Cloud Mac Mini: Complete Guide (2026)

Teams adopting Everything Claude Code (ECC) want Anthropic's Claude Code CLI plus a production harness—61 agents, 246 skills, and 76 command shims from affaan-m/ECC—on hardware that stays online. This guide's conclusion: install Claude Code on a MacLogin leased Mac mini, pick exactly one ECC install path (plugin or manual), copy only the rule packs you need, and drive sessions with ssh -t plus tmux.

Pair with Claude Code SSH PTY setup, first SSH trust, SSH keepalive troubleshooting, Multica on cloud Mac, and Mac mini rent vs buy., Cursor Rules vs Skills, Claude Opus 4.8 Super-Agent benchmark

Why ECC on a MacLogin Cloud Mac

ECC is the harness-native operator system for agentic work—skills, hooks, rules, memory tooling, and security scans—not a fork of Claude Code. A leased Mac mini M4 gives you native macOS, datacenter egress to api.anthropic.com, and always-on SSH while hooks and long agent loops run overnight.

Quotable rule: Never stack /plugin install ecc@ecc with npx ecc-install --profile full—ECC docs warn this duplicates skills and breaks hooks.

ECC Architecture on the Lease

Public IDs differ by channel: GitHub affaan-m/ECC, marketplace ecc@ecc, npm ecc-universal.

Prerequisites

Nine-Step Runbook

Step 1 — Region and SSH

Pick HK, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, or US East. Complete host-key trust and client keepalive per keepalive guide.

Step 2 — Install Claude Code

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
claude --version

Use claude auth login in an interactive shell—see PTY guidance if OAuth fails.

Step 3 — Clone ECC

git clone https://github.com/affaan-m/ECC.git
cd ECC && npm install

Step 4 — One install path only

Plugin:

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/affaan-m/ECC
/plugin install ecc@ecc

Or minimal manual:

./install.sh --profile minimal --target claude

Advisor:

npx ecc consult "security reviews" --target claude

Step 5 — Copy rules (plugin users)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/rules/ecc
cp -R ~/ECC/rules/common ~/.claude/rules/ecc/
cp -R ~/ECC/rules/typescript ~/.claude/rules/ecc/

Step 6 — Doctor

node scripts/ecc.js list-installed
node scripts/ecc.js doctor
node scripts/ecc.js repair

Step 7 — SSH + tmux

ssh -t user@host "cd ~/ECC && claude"
tmux new -As ecc

Step 8 — Pilot commands

Try /harness-audit, /security-scan, /sessions inside Claude on the lease.

Step 9 — Offboard

Revoke keys and remove overlays at lease end via offboarding runbook.

Claude Code Auth on Shared Leases

Do not export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in the same shell as subscription OAuth. One gateway per lease; scope keys per tenant.

Plugin vs Manual Installer

Profiles and Hooks

• minimal — no hooks-runtime (lowest overhead)
• core --without baseline:hooks — add hooks later with --modules hooks-runtime
• ECC_HOOK_PROFILE=minimal|standard|strict — runtime gating

SSH and tmux for Long ECC Loops

ECC agent loops can run 15–45+ minutes. Use tmux on the lease; cap concurrent agents at 2 on 16 GB M4 before raising parallelism.

Troubleshooting

Duplicate skills / double hooks

Symptom: Repeated skill invocations.
Cause: Plugin + full manual install.
Fix: ECC reset section on GitHub, then one path only; run ecc.js doctor.

Claude exits over SSH

Symptom: Input must be provided… --print.
Cause: Missing PTY.
Fix: ssh -t — full PTY runbook.

npm install timeout

Symptom: Registry TLS/timeout in APAC.
Cause: Home-region registry latency.
Fix: Tokyo/Singapore node; trial mirror; Node v20+.

OAuth vs API key clash

Symptom: Remote Control fails.
Cause: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY exported.
Fix: unset key; claude auth login in ssh -t.

FAQ