AI agents are changing how software gets built. They clone repos, install dependencies, run tests, and iterate in seconds.
Despite the change in software, most infrastructure was built for humans, not agents.
Traditional compute assumes someone is in the loop, with minutes to provision and configure environments. Agents need secure, isolated environments that start fast, run untrusted code, and disappear when the task is done.
Today, Vercel Sandbox is generally available, the execution layer for agents, and we're open-sourcing the Vercel Sandbox CLI and SDK for the community to build on this infrastructure.
Vercel processes over 2.7 million deployments per day. Each one spins up an isolated microVM, runs user code, and disappears, often in seconds.
To do that at scale, we built our own compute platform.
Internally code-named Hive, it’s powered by Firecracker and orchestrates microVM clusters across multiple regions. When you click Deploy in v0, import a repo, clone a template, or run
Sandbox brings that same infrastructure to agents.
Agents don’t work like humans. They spin up environments, execute code, tear them down, and repeat the cycle continuously.
That shifts the constraints toward isolation, security, and ephemeral operation, not persistent, long-running compute.
Agents need:
We’ve spent years solving these problems for deployments. Sandbox applies the same approach to agent compute.
Vercel Sandbox provides on-demand Linux microVMs. Each sandbox is isolated, with its own filesystem, network, and process space.
You get
Sandboxes are ephemeral by design. They run for as long as you need, then shut down automatically, and you only pay for active CPU time, not idle time.
This matches how agents work. A single task can involve dozens of start, run, and teardown cycles, and the infrastructure needs to keep up.
Roo Code builds AI coding agents that work across Slack, Linear, GitHub, and their web interface. When you trigger an agent, you get a running application to interact with, not just a patch.
Snapshots changed their architecture. They snapshot the environment so later runs can restore a known state instead of starting from scratch, skipping repo cloning, dependency installs, and service boot time.
Blackbox AI built Agents HQ, a unified orchestration platform that integrates multiple AI coding agents through a single API. It runs tasks inside Vercel Sandboxes.
This supports horizontal scaling for high-volume concurrent execution. Blackbox can dispatch tasks to multiple agents in parallel, each in an isolated sandbox, without resource contention.
Explore the documentation to get started, and check out the open-source SDK.
Read more
Continue reading...
Despite the change in software, most infrastructure was built for humans, not agents.
Traditional compute assumes someone is in the loop, with minutes to provision and configure environments. Agents need secure, isolated environments that start fast, run untrusted code, and disappear when the task is done.
Today, Vercel Sandbox is generally available, the execution layer for agents, and we're open-sourcing the Vercel Sandbox CLI and SDK for the community to build on this infrastructure.
Built on our compute platform
Vercel processes over 2.7 million deployments per day. Each one spins up an isolated microVM, runs user code, and disappears, often in seconds.
To do that at scale, we built our own compute platform.
Internally code-named Hive, it’s powered by Firecracker and orchestrates microVM clusters across multiple regions. When you click Deploy in v0, import a repo, clone a template, or run
vercel in the CLI, Hive is what makes it feel quick.Sandbox brings that same infrastructure to agents.
Why agents need different infrastructure
Agents don’t work like humans. They spin up environments, execute code, tear them down, and repeat the cycle continuously.
That shifts the constraints toward isolation, security, and ephemeral operation, not persistent, long-running compute.
Agents need:
Sub-second starts for thousands of sandboxes per task
Full isolation when running untrusted code from repositories and user input
Ephemeral environments that exist only as long as needed
Snapshots to restore complex environments instantly instead of rebuilding
Fluid compute with Active CPU pricing for cost and performance efficiency
We’ve spent years solving these problems for deployments. Sandbox applies the same approach to agent compute.
What is Vercel Sandbox?
Vercel Sandbox provides on-demand Linux microVMs. Each sandbox is isolated, with its own filesystem, network, and process space.
You get
sudo access, package managers, and the ability to run the same commands you’d run on a Linux machine.Sandboxes are ephemeral by design. They run for as long as you need, then shut down automatically, and you only pay for active CPU time, not idle time.
This matches how agents work. A single task can involve dozens of start, run, and teardown cycles, and the infrastructure needs to keep up.
How teams are using Sandbox
Roo Code
Roo Code builds AI coding agents that work across Slack, Linear, GitHub, and their web interface. When you trigger an agent, you get a running application to interact with, not just a patch.
Snapshots changed their architecture. They snapshot the environment so later runs can restore a known state instead of starting from scratch, skipping repo cloning, dependency installs, and service boot time.
Blackbox AI
Blackbox AI built Agents HQ, a unified orchestration platform that integrates multiple AI coding agents through a single API. It runs tasks inside Vercel Sandboxes.
This supports horizontal scaling for high-volume concurrent execution. Blackbox can dispatch tasks to multiple agents in parallel, each in an isolated sandbox, without resource contention.
Create your first sandbox with one command in the CLI
Explore the documentation to get started, and check out the open-source SDK.
Read more
Continue reading...