sandboxd

Open-source, self-hosted AI app builder.
Prompt it and a coding agent builds real apps in isolated sandboxes on your server — each live at a preview URL. You own the infra, code, and data. MIT.

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Prompt → a real, running app on your server, at its own URL.
See it in action 👇

1 · Build from a prompt — an agent builds it in an isolated sandbox, live at a preview URL.	2 · Or run an existing app — n8n, Ghost, Grafana… 80+ curated apps, one click.
3 · Or drive the API — every action is a /v1 call, headless & scriptable.	▶ Try the live demo Click around a real console with sample data — no install.

📣 Stay in the loop

Self-hosting is MIT and free, forever — git clone and you're done.
Want the 1.0 release + occasional product updates, or a managed cloud so you don't run the box yourself? Two links:

_{No spam, one-click unsubscribe, and the cloud is optional — the self-hosted engine is always the full product.}

What is sandboxd?

The apps where you type "build me a todo app" and a working site appears at its own link — Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit. sandboxd is the open-source engine that makes that work, on your own server. One HTTP request and it:

1. spins up a private, isolated container (its own filesystem + limits),
2. runs an AI coding agent inside it against your prompt, and
3. hands the app a live preview URL.

Idle sandboxes sleep and wake on demand, so one ordinary box holds many apps instead of a VM each. Under the hood it's deliberately small: one Go program driving Docker, Traefik for URLs, SQLite for state — no Kubernetes, no separate database, no queue.

Two ways to use it

• API-first — everything is a /v1 call, so you can build sandboxd into your own product.
• Optional web console — the fastest, no-code way to use it hands-on: create an app, chat to a coding agent, watch the live preview, edit files, and review a git diff & push — all in a browser. It's a pure /v1 client; the engine runs perfectly headless without it.

New here? Start with the console. Building a product? Drive the API.

What can you run? (a lot — from one console, no code)

The console isn't only for coders. Open it and, in one click or one prompt, you can:

• 🚀 Run a ready-made open-source app — a Ghost blog, n8n automations, a Gitea git host, Grafana / Metabase dashboards, Uptime Kuma, Jupyter, Keycloak… 80+ curated apps, installed and live at their own URL.
• 🧩 Start from a starter — a React/Vite, Next.js, or FastAPI scaffold that boots to a live preview; then just chat to shape it.
• 📥 Bring your own repo — import any public Git repo (no credential needed) and let a coding agent work on it.
• ✨ Build from scratch — describe an app and watch the agent build it in the live preview, then commit & push.

This is just a taste — if it's open-source, you can almost certainly run it.
Any Node, Python, or static-binary app boots as-is; anything else, bring your own base image or preset.

Ways to run an app →  ·  Base image, stacks & presets  ·  Architecture

Dev → prod, never shorter: prompt an app into a sandbox, iterate on a live preview, then self-host it on your own server in one command.

Quick start

Needs Docker + the Compose plugin and git on Linux (macOS via Docker Desktop is best-effort). Runs natively on amd64 and arm64 — including Apple Silicon Macs and arm64 Linux hosts (e.g. AWS Graviton) — every image builds from multi-arch bases with no cross-compilation. Install in one line:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tastyeffectco/sandboxd/main/install.sh | bash

It builds the images, starts the stack with the web console, and prints your console URL + a generated login — no password step. Open it, connect an agent under Settings, create an app, and build. No code needed.

• Console: http://console.localhost — the installer prints your login; lost it? run ./console-login.sh to see it again anytime
• API: http://127.0.0.1:9090 (curl http://127.0.0.1:9090/healthz → ok)
• Headless (no console): run with SANDBOXD_CONSOLE=0 (or --no-console)
• Upgrade later: run ./upgrade.sh — it backs up your database first, health-checks the new version, and rolls back automatically if it fails (Upgrading). ./upgrade.sh --check shows your version.

Prefer the API? Connect an agent once, create a sandbox, hand it a prompt:

API=http://127.0.0.1:9090
curl -s -XPOST $API/v1/agents/claude-code/api-key -d '{"api_key":"sk-ant-..."}'
ID=$(curl -s -XPOST $API/sandbox -d '{"ports":[3000]}' | sed -E 's/.*"id":"([^"]+)".*/\1/')
curl -s -XPOST $API/v1/sandboxes/$ID/tasks -d '{"prompt":"build a todo app on port 3000","agent":"opencode"}'
# open the result at  http://s-$ID-3000.preview.localhost

Full walkthrough → sandboxd.io/quickstart.

🚀 Deploy to a VPS in one click

sandboxd needs one Linux server with Docker — nothing else. Grab a server below (2 vCPU / 4 GB is plenty to start), paste our cloud-init file at creation, and it installs itself.

Disclosure: we earn a referral commission when you sign up through the provider links below, at no additional cost to you. It helps fund sandboxd's development.

Then on the new server (or paste deploy/cloud-init.yaml as user-data and skip this):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tastyeffectco/sandboxd/main/deploy/bootstrap.sh | sudo bash

Full per-provider walkthrough: deploy/DEPLOY.md.

What you get

• Isolated sandboxes — a hardened container per app with a workspace + live preview URL; sleep/wake so idle apps cost nothing.
• Built-in agents — OpenCode & Claude Code. No credential ever enters a sandbox (a proxy injects it on the wire), and every task is checkpointed & revertible.
• Runtime presets — React/Vite, Next.js, Node/Express, FastAPI, Worker; boot to a preview and reload after agent edits.
• Files, Git & secrets — in-browser editor + diffs, commit & push, per-app config/secrets (encrypted, write-only).
• Snapshots / fork / restore, an activity timeline, per-process logs, and live lifecycle tuning.

Who's it for?

✅ Use it if you run many sandboxes for other people — an AI app-builder, an agent platform, a coding playground, per-user or per-branch preview environments, or team multi-app hosting.

❌ Skip it if you just need one or two containers for yourself — a shell script or docker run is simpler. (Why not just a script?)

Get a public URL — sandboxd Cloud

Out of the box, previews live on .sslip.io or localhost: fine on your network, useless for sharing. sandboxd Cloud gives the server you already run https://you.sandboxd.io (console, API and *.preview.you.sandboxd.io) in one command — no domain, DNS, open ports or certificates, and it works behind NAT, on a laptop, or on a $5 VPS. Your compute and data stay on your machine. $9.99/server/month, 50% off at launch. Prefer your own domain? Production / TLS.

Managed — we run it for you

Don't want to run the server yourself? We'll install, configure, and manage sandboxd on your own box — BYOC (your compute, your data, no lock-in). One-time setup + optional monthly management. See Managed →

Documentation

Full docs live at sandboxd.io:

Building on it from your own agent? AGENTS.md is a copy-pasteable runbook.

Roadmap & community

• 🗺️ Roadmap — what's shipped & next · public project board
• 💬 Discussions — ask & get self-hosting help
• 🤝 Contribute — good first PRs: add a runtime preset or an App Store recipe (CONTRIBUTING.md)
• 🔒 Security — report privately per SECURITY.md

Beta · 0.x. Container isolation (not VMs), single-server, and API auth off by default — all fine for your own users; tighten before untrusted multi-tenancy. See Hardening. Expect the occasional breaking change before 1.0 — pin a version and update as you go.

⭐ If sandboxd is useful, star it

Stars are how other builders find sandboxd — it's the fastest way to support the project (and it keeps us going). Thank you 🙏

License

MIT. Use it, ship it, sell what you build on it.

Sponsors

sandboxd is free and MIT-licensed. Sponsors keep it maintained and fund the deploy roadmap — thank you to everyone who chips in.

No sponsors yet — be the first.