A classical Dyson "shell" IS a cloud
Dyson recognised the orbital instability of solid disks, rings, and spheres and actually proposed a cloud of independently-orbiting bodies forming a virtual "shell" or "sphere". Over the years, use of the phrase "Dyson Sphere" without context has led to the misunderstanding in many readers that he literally meant a solid hollow sphere or shell. He did not...
Wikipedia
Furthermore, he did not intend that life would exist, crawling on the inside or outside of the shell, but merely that the shell would be a mechanism to intercept the entire output of the local sun for power use by a civilisation situated on more conventional habitats in nearby orbits.