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How to Delete Startup Scripts for Vultr Instances

Updated on 29 September, 2025

Learn how to permanently remove custom startup scripts from your Vultr account when theyre no longer needed.

Deleting Startup Scripts for Vultr instances completely removes the script from your account. This step is necessary if you no longer need to run the commands when provisioning Cloud Compute instances. After deleting a startup script, you can't undo the operation, so you should take great care.

Follow this guide to delete Startup Scripts for Vultr instances using the Vultr Customer Portal, API, CLI, or Terraform.

  • Vultr Customer Portal
  • Vultr API
  • Vultr CLI
  • Terraform
  1. Navigate to Orchestration and select Scripts.
  2. Select the target startup script and click the delete icon to remove the script.
  3. Confirm the new change and click Delete.

  1. Send a GET request to the List Startup Scripts endpoint and note the script ID.

    console 
    $ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/startup-scripts" \
    -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

  2. Send a DELETE request to the Delete Startup Script endpoint and specify a script ID.

    console 
    $ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/startup-scripts/script_id" \
    -X DELETE \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

  1. List all scripts.

    console 
    $ vultr-cli script list

  2. Delete a script by specifying a script ID.

    console 
    $ vultr-cli script delete script_id

    Run vultr-cli script delete --help to view all options.

  1. Open your Terraform configuration where the Startup Script is defined.

  2. Remove the vultr_startup_script resource block, or destroy it by target.

    terraform 
    resource "vultr_startup_script" "boot" {
  name   = "Sample-Script"
  type   = "boot"  # boot | pxe
  script = "#!/bin/sh\necho hi\n"
}

# To delete, either remove this block from configuration
# or run: terraform destroy -target vultr_startup_script.boot

  3. Apply the configuration and observe the following output:

    Apply complete! Resources: 0 added, 0 changed, 1 destroyed.

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