boxd

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Cloud computers, instantly.

Persistent, isolated Linux machines in the cloud. Boot in under a second. Fork, share, and run anything.

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Getting started5 min readNo install needed

What is boxd?

Real Linux machines in the cloud. Persistent, isolated, ready in under a second. SSH in and you have a computer.

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Custom VMMRaft consensusSingle binary

How boxd Works

Your SSH key is your identity. Your terminal is your dashboard. A deep dive into the architecture.

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Manifesto

  1. 01

    The agent lives inside the machine.

    Why every boxd decision — fork, hibernation, persistence, SSH — flows from one architectural bet: the agent lives inside the machine.

  2. 02

    Persistence beats ephemeral.

    E2B had the right primitive for 2023. 2026 is different. Why every sandbox provider is racing to ship persistence — and why retrofitting it isn't the same as being built for it.

  3. 03

    A single Rust binary.

    Zero external dependencies. No Postgres, no Redis, no Kubernetes. Why the simplicity isn't a gimmick — it's the moat.

Articles

  1. 01

    Where to run an agent harness in production.

    Anthropic and LangChain define what an agent harness is. This piece answers the question they don't: where does the harness actually live in production?

  2. 02

    MCP server hosting: a complete guide.

    Where do production MCP servers actually live? The four hosting patterns, what changes when MCP goes to production, and the five properties a remote MCP server host needs.

  3. 03

    Running Anthropic computer use on a remote VM.

    Computer use needs a desktop. The hard part isn't the API — it's where the desktop lives. What the workload actually needs from its host, and why most cloud primitives don't ship with a display.

  4. 04

    Self-hosted agent execution for engineering teams.

    Where does the agent actually execute? The compliance and engineering dimensions, what the substrate has to provide, and the EU sovereignty angle, honestly.

  5. 05

    The cloud dev environment: a practical guide for 2026.

    Why CDE is back in the conversation, the four shapes the category comes in this year, and what changed when AI agents joined the workload.

  6. 06

    boxd vs exe.dev: persistent SSH VMs, compared honestly.

    Two products in the same lane: persistent Linux VMs over SSH, batteries included. An honest comparison of the design choices that fall out of the shared thesis.

  7. 07

    boxd vs sprites.dev: two bets on persistent agent compute.

    Sprites and boxd agree on the architecture: persistent microVMs are the right primitive for AI agents. Where the two implementations diverge, honestly.

Use Cases

For your team

Development Environments

Full Linux VMs your whole team can fork and share.

Full Linux VMs with complete isolation. No drift between developers or environments. Fork any machine, share it with a public URL.

$ ssh boxd.sh fork golden-image --name=sarah
✓ sarah created (48ms)
 
Docker, Postgres, Redis — all running.
 
Development Environments — boxd customer 1Development Environments — boxd customer 2Development Environments — boxd customer 3Teams are shipping faster with boxd
For your agents

Background Agents

Agents that work while your team sleeps.

Fork a fully-configured machine per agent. No time limits, real services, parallel exploration. Zero cost when idle.

$ ssh boxd.sh fork dev-env --name=agent-fix-42
✓ agent-fix-42 created (0.9s)
 
3 hours later...
✓ All 847 tests passing · PR ready
Background Agents — boxd customer 1Background Agents — boxd customer 2Background Agents — boxd customer 3Agents shipping while teams sleep
For your product
50mscold boot
10mspause/resume

Agent Sandboxes

Fastest in the category. Full VM isolation.

Run untrusted code safely at scale. KVM isolation, not containers. Every sandbox gets its own kernel. Built for platforms that execute user-generated and AI-generated code.

from boxd import Compute
 
with Compute() as c:
    box = c.box.create("my-vm")
    result = box.exec("claude", "-p", "Fix auth")
Agent Sandboxes — boxd customer 1Agent Sandboxes — boxd customer 2Agent Sandboxes — boxd customer 3Platforms run sandboxes on boxd
Talk to us

read the docs · ssh boxd.sh