Code & AI agent sandboxes: read the guide

Lifo

Open source toolSandbox

A tiny Linux-like OS in TypeScript, for browsers, Node and serverless functions.

Homepage Docs Repository

Scanned 12 Oct 2026 · Schema v5 · features v21

Licence: MIT
Self-hosted; you pay for the infrastructure.
Free tier: Free to run
Isolation: Not disclosed
the public docs do not say
Regions: —
Not disclosed on the public surface.
Capabilities: 12 / 61
3 partial · 42 fail · 0 not assessed
Agent readiness: 8/10 · 3/5
read · drive, pre-login surface

Advertised for

Agent/user generated JavaScript · Browser IDEs and teaching · Vite/React development servers · Expo/Expo Router previews · Node compatible npm CLI tools · Serverless/edge shell utilities

Built for

Developers, then technical

· https://lifo.sh/ — code hero imports Sandbox and runs shell/npm commands.
· https://lifo.sh/docs — architecture, Node/VFS/networking and TypeScript API reference.
· https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lifo-sh/lifo/main/packages/cli/README.md — npm install/npx CLI onboarding.

01 Runtime Each fact carries its source; dots show confidence. Open a row for the evidence.

Isolation & lifecycle

Isolation primitive

Not disclosedthe public docs do not say

Persistence

Optional browser IndexedDB persistence; Node in-memory by default with explicit host-directory mounts.

Snapshots / forks

Portable tar.gz filesystem snapshots with cwd/env manifest; restore or clone into another box. No live process/memory checkpoints.

Resources & limits

Storage

POSIX-like in-memory VFS with providers, hash-addressed blob/content stores, optional IndexedDB and Node host mounts.

Limits & quotas

No vendor session/usage caps; resource consumption is host-dependent. timeout/AbortSignal exist but are cooperative, with no hard CPU/memory quota documented.

GPU

Access

Deploy interface

clisdk

SDK languages

TypeScriptJavaScript

Network & secrets

Egress controls

Guide says outbound fetch reaches what you allow; no concrete outbound allow/deny policy API is documented.

Secrets

Sandbox.create({env}) and commands.run({env}) inject environment variables visible to workload code.

Bring your own cloud

Placement & use

Jurisdiction

Advertised workloads

Agent/user generated JavaScriptBrowser IDEs and teachingVite/React development serversExpo/Expo Router previewsNode compatible npm CLI toolsServerless/edge shell utilities

02 Capabilities 12 pass · 3 partial · 42 fail · 61 of 61 assessed

Supported — Documented on the public surface and verified.
Partially supported — Exists with caveats: gated, thin, or enterprise-only.
Not supported — Checked and not offered.
Not assessed — Scanned before this capability was tracked. Not a lack.

Compute & storage 3/9

Persistent diskStorage that survives restart/stop (not ephemeral-only).

Supported

Object storageManaged S3-compatible / blob object store the platform PROVIDES to a user's workloads (buckets, presigned URLs). DISTINCT from persistent-disk (block/volume attached to an instance) and from a self-host dependency (source.self_host.deps[]=["object-storage"] is an infra dep to RUN an OSS tool — the opposite direction). SCOPE varies and matters: native first-class (Railway Buckets, Cloudflare R2) vs a sibling SKU / extension (Fly Tigris, Bunny Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces) — record which in the evidence quote / note. Admitted v15.

Not supported

Snapshots / forkingSnapshot or copy-on-write fork of a running instance (filesystem-only counts). Whether the snapshot also restores memory + running processes is recorded separately by memory-snapshot (v19).

Supported

Live-state (memory) snapshotsA snapshot / checkpoint / pause captures a running instance's MEMORY and PROCESS state and restores it, so running processes continue where they left off instead of a freshly booted instance with the same files. Counts whether user-triggered (snapshot, checkpoint, pause-to-storage) or used to restore pre-initialised state (memory snapshots for fast cold starts). Distinct from snapshots-forks (any snapshot or fork, including filesystem-only; a product passing that key may still fail this one) and from scale-to-zero (an idle-cost property; suspension may or may not keep memory). Actor multiplexing (see scale-to-zero) records its live-state half here — only when the suspended actor's MEMORY/process state is what comes back, not a freshly booted worker with the actor's files.

Not supported

Scale to zeroIdle instances suspend at no / negligible cost. ACTOR MULTIPLEXING (many suspended stateful actors sharing a small pool of pre-warmed workers, woken on request — Agent Substrate, AX, kagent; Rivet's hibernating actors) has NO key of its own (proposal REJECTED v20) — score the idle-cost half HERE and the live-state half under memory-snapshot; the oversubscription ratio / density is a performance characteristic the registry does not key.

Not applicable

GPU computeGPU-backed instances available.

Not supported

Multi-regionCompute placeable in more than one geographic region.

Not applicable

Sandbox templates / custom imagesBuild reusable sandbox/VM images from an OCI image or Dockerfile (a base you fork instances from).

Supported

Cloud-init / ignition configCustomise a VM / microVM / instance at boot via cloud-init (or ignition) user-data — the same boot-metadata interface as AWS/Azure/GCP. Inject packages, users, SSH keys, files, and run-commands declaratively at launch. Distinct from sandbox-templates (a PREBUILT image you fork instances from) — this is PER-LAUNCH declarative customisation, not a baked image.

Not supported

Desktop / computer-use sandboxA virtual desktop (GUI) for LLM computer-use — browser + desktop automation, often via noVNC/VNC.

Not supported

Selectable isolation runtimeThe user chooses the isolation runtime per workload / environment / sandbox from more than one option (e.g. microVM vs gVisor vs plain container, native namespaces vs gVisor, gVisor vs VM). Records the CHOICE; the isolation_primitive facet still records the best-evidenced primary. A platform that switches runtime automatically without a user choice (e.g. gVisor forced for GPU) does not pass on that alone.

Not supported

Networking & delivery 2/9

Automatic HTTPSTLS endpoints provisioned automatically per workload.

Not supported

Built-in reverse proxyPlatform routes external traffic to workload services.

Supported

Custom domainsBring-your-own domain via CNAME/DNS.

Not supported

Public preview URLsShareable per-deploy / per-branch URLs.

Supported

Direct public IPv6Per-instance stable public IPv6 for raw TCP/UDP (beyond a managed HTTPS proxy) — e.g. mosh / raw sockets.

Not supported

Egress controlsConfigurable OUTBOUND network policy — egress firewall / allowlist / egress proxy on traffic LEAVING a workload. Scoped to OUTBOUND only (v15): private-network REACHABILITY between a user's own services is private-networking, not this. Static-egress-IP belongs here (an outbound concept).

Partially supported

Private networkingA platform-internal private network between a user's OWN services — service-to-service connectivity, VPC, service mesh, and/or service discovery, not exposed to the public internet. DISTINCT from egress-controls (OUTBOUND firewall/allowlist), reverse-proxy (PUBLIC inbound ingress), and direct-ipv6 (per-instance PUBLIC addressing). Admitted v15.

Partially supported

Email send / receiveSend and/or receive email from the workload.

Not supported

Edge KV storeA globally-replicated key-value store read from WITHIN an edge runtime at the PoP (low-latency, eventually-consistent) — Cloudflare Workers KV, Deno KV, Fastly KV Store, Akamai EdgeKV, Vercel Edge Config. Distinct from first-party-db (a managed DATABASE service you provision and connect to) and from http-query-api (HTTP access to an external store) — edge-kv is colocated with the edge compute and read at the edge.

Not supported

Developer access 4/10

Public APIDocumented programmatic API.

Supported

OpenAPI specMachine-readable OpenAPI / Swagger spec published.

Not supported

CLIOfficial command-line tool.

Supported

SDKOfficial client library/libraries.

Supported

SSH accessDirect SSH into workloads.

Not supported

Filesystem APIRemote file operations over the API (list/read/write/watch/copy/upload) without SSH.

Supported

Git deployDeploy from a Git repo / push-to-deploy.

Not supported

Private container registryHosted private image registry.

Not supported

E2B-compatible APIDrop-in compatibility with the E2B sandbox API/SDKs — existing E2B client code runs against this product by changing the endpoint/domain + key, with no business-code changes. E2B itself passes as the reference implementation. Distinct from public-api / sdk (the product has its own API — this key says it also speaks another vendor's) and from self-host-oss (a self-hosted E2B-compatible server is scored on both).

Not supported

HTTP data APIQuery / read / write the stored DATA over plain HTTP/REST (or GraphQL) WITHOUT the native protocol driver (Postgres wire / Redis RESP) — agent- and edge-friendly data access via fetch(). The DATA plane; distinct from public-api (a control-plane / management API). Auto-generated-from-schema REST/GraphQL (PostgREST, pg_graphql) is a flavour of this.

Not supported

AI & agents 0/12

Built-in coding agentShips a first-party AI coding agent in the product.

Not supported

Agent skillsInstallable / declarable agent skills or tools.

Not supported

AI app builderPrompt-to-app / vibe-coding generation surface.

Not supported

MCP serverExposes a Model Context Protocol server for agents.

Not supported

MCP clientActs as an MCP client / consumes MCP tools.

Not supported

MCP-server hostingRun/host MCP servers as a workload on the platform (distinct from exposing a first-party MCP control server — that is mcp-server).

Not supported

LLM gatewayRoutes LLM API calls through the platform (multi-provider).

Not supported

BYOK for LLMsBring-your-own LLM provider keys.

Not supported

Model inference API (first-party)A FIRST-PARTY hosted LLM/model inference API — the provider serves its OWN catalogue of (usually open-weight) models behind a (typically OpenAI-compatible) endpoint, billed per token. Distinct from llm-gateway (a multi-PROVIDER proxy/router for YOUR calls to external providers like OpenAI/Anthropic) and from byok-llm (bring your own provider keys) — here the platform IS the inference provider, serving its own models.

Not supported

Autonomous QA agentA first-party AUTONOMOUS AI agent that QA-TESTS a running app / implementation — exercising it like a real user (clicking through flows, checking behaviour) and reporting bugs/defects (often back to a coding agent, or before a human review). Distinct from built-in-agent (a code-AUTHORING agent — this one VERIFIES the result, it does not write the feature; a product can ship both), from ai-guided-code-review (organises a diff for a HUMAN to review — not an autonomous tester), and from observability (runtime metrics/logs, not active testing).

Not supported

Credential-injection proxyThe platform holds real secrets OUTSIDE the workload and injects them on the wire (an egress / broker proxy swaps a placeholder or phantom token for the real credential on matching outbound requests), so code running in the sandbox — e.g. an untrusted agent — never sees or can exfiltrate the real key. Distinct from secrets-management (storage + injection INTO the workload as env vars/files — the workload holds the secret) and from egress-controls (outbound allow/deny POLICY; a product can have an allowlist without injecting credentials, and vice versa).

Not supported

Preinstalled coding agentThe platform installs and launches a THIRD-PARTY coding agent (a harnesses.yml entry — Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi ...) inside a workspace/sandbox it provisions, with the agent's auth wired in (your own account or API key), so you start an agent session rather than an empty box. Distinct from built-in-agent (a FIRST-PARTY agent the vendor ships) and from harnesses[] (which records that a harness CAN target the product, not that the product runs it for you).

Not supported

Data 0/4

First-party databasePlatform-provided managed database.

Not supported

Database branchingCopy-on-write branch of a DATABASE (schema + data) as a dev-lifecycle primitive — branch your data like code, usually instant via a metadata operation. Distinct from snapshots-forks (forks a running compute INSTANCE / VM state) and from preview-environments (a full per-PR environment that may USE a DB branch). For a data product a CoW branch maps HERE, not to snapshots-forks.

Not supported

Vector searchFirst-class storage, indexing, and similarity search of vector embeddings — a native vector type/index or a managed vector DB. The data-layer primitive for RAG / semantic retrieval.

Not supported

Ephemeral instant DB (no-signup)Provision a working, usable instance via a single command / HTTP call with NO account, signup, or card — typically time-boxed (expires unless claimed). A zero-onboarding path an agent can hit directly.

Not supported

Platform & operations 0/5

Scheduled tasksCron / scheduled job primitive.

Not supported

Durable workflowsDurable execution / long-running workflow primitive.

Not supported

Preview environmentsA full EPHEMERAL environment spun up per PR / branch — compute + addons + (often) a DB branch — torn down on merge. More than preview-urls (which is just a shareable URL for one deploy).

Not supported

Built-in observabilityFirst-party metrics / logs / tracing / APM / profiling included in the platform (no third-party stack required to see what a workload is doing).

Partially supported

Managed CI/CD runnersPlatform-hosted, drop-in CI/CD runner VMs (GitHub Actions / GitLab), typically faster and cheaper than the CI vendor's own hosted runners, billed per runner-minute; isolated + ephemeral per job. Distinct from git-deploy (push-to-deploy of an APP) and scheduled-tasks (cron) — this is managed CI COMPUTE you point your existing pipelines at.

Not applicable

Project template marketplaceA marketplace / gallery of prebuilt PROJECT STARTER templates (apps or websites) a user clones or launches a new project from and then customises — the "start from a template" surface of a builder / PaaS. Distinct from sandbox-templates (a COMPUTE base IMAGE you fork runtime INSTANCES from — Dockerfile / OCI), from app-builder (the prompt-to-app GENERATION surface — a product can have both), and from one-click OSS-app catalogues / helm-addon-marketplace (deploy a FINISHED app as-is, not a starter you build on).

Not supported

Organisation & security 3/8

Built-in authPlatform-provided authentication / IAM for workloads.

Not supported

SSO / SAMLEnterprise single sign-on.

Not supported

Secrets managementFirst-class secrets storage / injection.

Supported

TeamsMulti-user team accounts.

Not supported

SharingShare a running workload/resource via link (optionally gated).

Supported

BYOCRuns inside the customer's own cloud account.

Not applicable

Deploy into customers' VPCsA SaaS vendor uses the platform to deploy and operate ITS software inside ITS CUSTOMERS' cloud accounts / VPCs (nested or "customer BYOC"), managed from the vendor's control plane. Distinct from byoc (your own workloads in your own cloud account).

Not supported

Workload identityThe platform gives each workload its own verifiable identity (OIDC token, SPIFFE SVID, cloud IAM federation) that it exchanges for short-lived credentials, so no long-lived static secret is stored or injected. Distinct from secrets-management (stores / injects static secrets) and credential-injection-proxy (swaps real secrets in on the wire).

Not supported

Self-host / OSS coreOpen-source core that can be self-hosted.

Supported

Proposed, not verified

Capabilities the scan saw but the registry does not track yet. A key is admitted only once two distinct products exhibit it. These are not scored.

Browser-native OS runtimebrowser-native-runtime
“A whole OS in a browser tab” lifo.sh
Clean-room Node/Unix compatibility runtimenodejs-compat-runtime
“Lifo is a clean-room reimplementation of the OS and Node.js APIs in TypeScript — not a Linux distribution or a VM.” lifo.sh
Offline executionoffline-execution
“OfflineYesNoNoNo” lifo.sh

03 Agent readiness Pre-login surface · counts, not a grade

Can an agent read it?

parse-ability · docs, metadata, machine-readable surfaces

8/10

6 full · 2 partial · 80% of applicable checks

llms.txt
Partially supported
“https://lifo.sh/llms.txt — install/features plus website/repo/npm/demo links, but no docs/pricing links.”
llms-full.txt
Not supported
“Apex and /docs/llms-full.txt HTTP 404; no modular full-text equivalent linked.”
robots.txt AI policy
Partially supported
“https://lifo.sh/robots.txt — User-Agent:* Allow:/; no named AI user-agent policy.”
JSON-LD
Supported
“https://lifo.sh/ — SoftwareApplication with name, description, free Offer, codeRepository and MIT license.”
Sitemap
Supported
“https://lifo.sh/sitemap.xml — 14 <url> entries; robots points here.”
Meta tags
Supported
“https://lifo.sh/ — descriptive title/description and OpenGraph/Twitter metadata.”
Markdown negotiation
Not supported
“Accept:text/markdown at landing and /docs/sandbox-api returns text/html; /docs/sandbox-api.md HTTP 404.”
Content efficiency
Supported
“https://lifo.sh/ — readable UTF-8 text 9,210 bytes / HTML 175,979 bytes = 5.23%; server-rendered substantive content.”
Docs discoverable
Supported
“https://lifo.sh/ — first-class Docs header link to public /docs index.”
Machine-readable pricing
Not applicable
“MIT self-host runtime has no hosted pricing ladder; /pricing HTTP 404, no commercial compute plans to grade.”
No anti-bot wall
Supported
“Landing/docs/legal/well-known requests fetched without challenges. Login fallback rendered ordinary sign-in with blocked:false.”

Can an agent drive it?

act-ability · APIs, SDKs, MCP, credentials, webhooks

3/5

2 full · 1 partial · 60% of applicable checks

Public API
Supported
“https://lifo.sh/docs/sandbox-api — documented Sandbox create/commands/fs/fetch API.”
OpenAPI spec
Not applicable
“No documented hosted HTTP control API; public API is in-process JS. OpenAPI/Swagger common probes HTTP 404.”
MCP server
Not supported
“/.well-known/mcp HTTP 404 and no documented Model Context Protocol server in docs/repo tree.”
SDK packages
Partially supported
“Official @lifo-sh/core npm package in one JS/TS ecosystem; no multi-language SDK set.”
Auth documented
Not applicable
“Core Sandbox.create requires no credentials. Optional account/tunnel login is not workload provisioning auth.”
Self-serve credentials
Not applicable
“Local workloads need no vendor keys; no hosted compute signup/issuance path to grade.”
Webhooks
Not applicable
“No hosted workload lifecycle service; local filesystem callbacks are not HTTP webhooks.”
CLI tool
Supported
“https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lifo-sh/lifo/main/packages/cli/README.md — official npx lifo-sh, npm latest 0.10.23.”
Error model
Not applicable
“No hosted JSON API error model. Local command API documents stdout/stderr/exitCode; internal dispatcher uses x-lifo headers.”
Rate limits documented
Not applicable
“No hosted core API quotas. Resource usage/timeout are host-runtime facts, not vendor API response-header limits.”
Agent config files
Not supported
“/agents.md and /.well-known/agent HTTP 404; no AGENTS.md/agent skills in retained repo tree selection.”

04 Coding harnesses Which agents and IDEs are documented to run here

Advertised integrations 0

The public surface names no coding harness as supported or documented-to-run-here.

Plausible compatibility 0

Derived, not stored: the product passes SSH access, so any CLI coding agent is installable inside it. This is plausible compatibility, not a supported integration.

No general shell access documented, so nothing is derived. Absence is not unsupported.

05 Compliance & regions Standards held, with ordinal rigor; never a score

Certifications held 0

No attestations found on the public surface. Empty means nothing is advertised, after checking, not that nothing was checked.

Regions —

No region list captured.

Legal

Privacy notice Terms of service

06 Open source MIT · fetched by machine, not quoted from marketing

Licence & repository

Licence: MITOSI
Primary language: TypeScript
Stars: 543
Forks: 37
Created: 23 Feb 2026
Archived: No

Activity

Last commit: 9 Oct 2026
Latest release: —
Issues open / closed: 4 / 0 · 0% closed

No GitHub releases returned by mandatory GraphQL. npm latest core/CLI 0.10.23 published 2026-10-09; core 0.10.19/20 Oct 1, 0.10.21 Oct 6, 0.10.22/23 Oct 9. Package changelogs retained. Observed patch iteration, no promised schedule.

Fetched via gh on 12 Oct 2026.

Self-hosting

Methods: package-managersource-build
You operate: —

Free under MIT plus operator hardware/infrastructure. npm @lifo-sh/core embeds the runtime; npx lifo-sh runs the CLI; source README documents pnpm install/dev. Requires modern browser or Node, not Docker/KVM. Browser persistence is optional IndexedDB; Node is in-memory by default with opt-in host mounts. JS-level separation is not a security boundary; no native Linux executables/full Node fidelity. Cooperative cancellation cannot forcibly halt a JS call stack; docs advise separate processes/tabs for hard isolation. Browser non-CORS/Git requests may need a configured proxy; sharing uses a self-host relay or ancillary lifo.sh relay. CLI is shipped despite stale roadmap; a distributable standalone binary is exploring, not a documented installation method. Published bin is lifo-sh though docs often say lifo; npx lifo-sh is unambiguous.

Documentation signals 7/8

SupportedQuickstart
SupportedAPI reference
SupportedSelf-host guide
SupportedChangelog
Not supportedOpenAPI
Supportedllms.txt
SupportedExamples
SupportedArchitecture doc

07 Company & presence Facts only, not scored

Company

Headquarters: Bangalore, India
Founded: —
Team size: Not disclosed
Hiring: unknown

Notable people

Sanket Sahu — core creator and metadata author

Activity

Last release: 0.10.23 — 2026-10-09T12:08:42.052Z (@lifo-sh/core npm) registry.npmjs.org
Last blog post: 2026-02-27 lifo.sh

Presence 8

Links found on the public surface scanned; not an exhaustive search.

08 Sources & method How this entry was produced

Public surface only

Everything here was read from lifo.sh's unauthenticated pages, docs, pricing and repository on 12 Oct 2026. Nothing behind a login was used.

Statuses, not scores

Capabilities are pass, partial or fail against a written rubric (features v21). “Not assessed” means the scan predates the key.

Confidence is separate

Each fact carries its own confidence. Low-confidence facts are shown, never hidden, so you can weigh them.

Schema: scan v5
Features registry: v21
Keys tracked today: 61
Assessed on this entry: 61

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