Run multiple agents in parallel, with a single command, on your PC, self-hosted, or in the cloud

Works with iterm2 - cmux - tmux - Herdr

How it works

agentbox claude # launch a new VM with claude and your project inside

• 📦 Teleport - Move your project to a dedicated VM, local or in the cloud, with a single command.
• 🤖 Automatic - Bring all your skills, plugins, and settings for Claude Code, Codex, Open Code
• 🌐 A full Computer — Dedicated browser, screen sharing, persistent shells and warmed up VS Code / Cursor IDE, with each box.
• 💾 Checkpoints — Sub <1s startup of new boxes from a previous checkpoint, auto pause to save cost/resources when not in use.
• 🔒 Safe - Your git credentials are kept on your local machine, with permission requests to push to the remote repository.

Full Documentation

Complete setup:

npm -g install @madarco/agentbox
agentbox install

# Launch a new VM with claude, copy all your settings and workspace
agentbox claude

# Also install required project libraries and launch your dev server
> Run setup wizard? -> Yes

# Also use a cloud:
agentbox hetzner claude # or vercel, daytona

# Ctrl+a d to detach, claude keep going, to reconnect later:
agentbox attach 1

# To open a persistent shell inside the box:
agentbox shell 1

# Create a second box:
agentbox claude
agentbox attach 2
agentbox shell 2

# Open your web project on a .local url tunnel on your pc
agentbox url 2
# Or the in-box browser via webVNC:
agentbox screen 2
# Or connect to vscode/cursor inside the box:
agentbox code 2

# See status and quickly switch between agents:
agentbox dashboard

Demo

Install

npm -g install @madarco/agentbox

Want to help test what's coming? npm -g install @madarco/agentbox@nightly puts you on the nightly channel — pre-release builds, with stable releases still reaching you automatically. agentbox self-update --channel stable opts back out.

Requirements: macOS (arm64 or Intel) or Linux, Docker (Docker Desktop or OrbStack), Node >=20.10. The first agentbox create / agentbox claude builds the agentbox/box:dev image (~1 GB, one-time). Uses portless to give box web apps the same URL from inside the box and on the host.

Cloud Providers

| | local docker | remote docker | hetzner | daytona | vercel | e2b | | ------------------- | ------------------------- | ---------------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------ | ------------------ | ------------------ | | Support | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠️ Partial | ✅ | ✅ | | Base image | Dockerfile | Dockerfile (on the remote) | Setup script (Ubuntu) | Dockerfile | Setup script | Dockerfile (Template.build) | | Live snapshots | ✅ | ✅ (docker commit) | ✅ | 🧪 Experimental | ✅ | ✅ | | Private preview URLs| ✅ (portless or OrbStack) | ✅ (portless over SSH) | ✅ (portless) | ✅ (native) | ✅ (native) | ✅ (native) |

Cloud setup (optional — skip for local Docker)

• agentbox install — interactive setup wizard to choose which providers to use and configure them.
• agentbox vercel login — interactive Vercel Sandbox token setup, saved to ~/.agentbox/secrets.env
• agentbox hetzner login — interactive Hetzner Cloud token setup, saved to ~/.agentbox/secrets.env
• agentbox daytona login — interactive Daytona API key setup, saved to ~/.agentbox/secrets.env
• agentbox e2b login — interactive E2B API key setup, saved to ~/.agentbox/secrets.env
• agentbox digitalocean login — interactive DigitalOcean Personal Access Token setup, saved to ~/.agentbox/secrets.env
• agentbox remote-docker doctor <host> — run boxes on a machine you already own, over SSH. No login and no token: it connects as you, using your own ~/.ssh/config. Then agentbox docker:<host> claude.
• agentbox prepare [--provider daytona|hetzner|vercel|e2b|digitalocean|docker:<host>] — build the image and initial snapshot (e2b builds from a Dockerfile via Template.build())
• agentbox hetzner claude, agentbox hetzner codex, agentbox hetzner create, etc.

How to use

<box> is optional almost everywhere — it defaults to the box for the current project, or use its short index (1, 2, …), name, or id prefix.

Create & run

• agentbox create — Create and start a new agent box (Docker container with FUSE overlay)
• agentbox claude — Create a sandboxed box and launch Claude Code in a detachable tmux session

Access

• agentbox url — Open a box's web app URL in the browser (even with no expose: service)
• agentbox screen — Open a box's VNC (noVNC) viewer in the browser
• agentbox code — Open a box in VS Code or Cursor via the Dev Containers extension
• agentbox shell — Open an interactive bash shell in a box
• agentbox open — Open a box's merged workspace in Finder
• agentbox logs — Print recent log lines from a box service; -f to stream
• agentbox dashboard — Box list + the selected box's live agent session

Inspect

• agentbox list (ls) — List boxes in current project or -g for all
• agentbox status — Show service + task status from a box's agentbox-ctl daemon
• agentbox top — Live resource monitor (cpu/mem/pids/disk) for a box, project, or all boxes

Lifecycle

• agentbox start — Start a stopped box (docker start + re-mount the FUSE overlay)
• agentbox stop — Stop a box (preserves the upper volume, node_modules included)
• agentbox destroy (rm) — Destroy a box and discard its upper volume
• agentbox pause / agentbox unpause — Freeze / resume a box (sub-second)

Sync & state

• agentbox download — Download a box's /workspace back into your host workspace (gitignore-aware)
• agentbox cp <src> [dst] — Copy individual files between host and box (like docker cp; direction picked by name: prefix)
• agentbox checkpoint (alias checkpoints) — List and manage project checkpoints (warm box state to start new boxes from); bare command lists, checkpoint create captures

Advanced

• agentbox wait — Block until the box reports all autostart units ready
• agentbox prune — Clean up orphan state records (and with --all, orphan docker resources)
• agentbox self-update — Update agentbox, wipe the box image so it rebuilds, reload the relay
• agentbox config — Read / write layered config (global, per-project, workspace defaults:)
• agentbox relay — Manage the host relay process (status / stop / start / restart)
• agentbox app — Control the macOS menu-bar app process (status / start / stop / restart); install it with agentbox install app

Run agentbox <command> --help for command-specific options.

Documentation

Full documentation lives at agent-box.sh/docs:

• Quickstart and Core concepts
• Teleport a project, Run an agent, Access your box
• Configuration, Services & tasks, Sync & git
• Cloud providers: Hetzner, Daytona, Vercel, E2B, DigitalOcean
• Full CLI reference

Development

git clone https://github.com/madarco/agentbox && cd agentbox
pnpm install && pnpm build
node apps/cli/dist/index.js --help

The full development workflow, stack, end-to-end smoke tests, and teardown live in docs/development.md.

Menu-bar tray app (dev)

The macOS tray app lives in the sibling repo ../agentbox-tray. When you have it checked out next to this repo, these scripts build and run your local dev build (ad-hoc signed, at ../agentbox-tray/AgentBoxTray.app) — separate from the notarized copy agentbox install app puts in /Applications:

pnpm tray:dev        # rebuild the dev .app and relaunch it (the one you'll use most)
pnpm tray:build      # just rebuild (scripts/make-app.sh)
pnpm tray:start      # launch the dev build
pnpm tray:stop       # quit any running instance
pnpm tray:restart    # quit + relaunch the dev build

Note: agentbox app start|restart targets the installed /Applications copy, not this dev build. Use the pnpm tray:* scripts while iterating on the tray here; run agentbox install app to refresh /Applications from the current CLI build.

Custom providers (plugins)

AgentBox's provider surface is open — you can run agents on your own cloud/infra by shipping a provider plugin (its own npm package built on @madarco/agentbox-provider-sdk), with no changes to AgentBox. Build and test against the bundled example provider locally:

# build the SDK, then build + register the example provider
pnpm --filter @madarco/agentbox-provider-sdk build
cd examples/agentbox-provider-example && npm install && npm run build
node ../../apps/cli/dist/index.js plugin add .      # register it
node ../../apps/cli/dist/index.js doctor            # shows the provider's group

# verify the SDK artifact in isolation (packs + installs the tarball, asserts exports)
pnpm --filter @madarco/agentbox-provider-sdk pack:test

Full guide: Build a provider (and the authoring reference docs/provider-plugins.md). Reference packages: examples/agentbox-provider-sample (stub) and examples/agentbox-provider-example (a real, Vercel-backed provider).

Contributing

Bug reports, docs fixes, and provider work are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md. First-time contributors sign a one-line CLA on their first pull request. Security issues go through SECURITY.md, not a public issue.

For new sandbox providers, see Build a provider and the authoring reference docs/provider-plugins.md.

Author

Marco D'Alia - @madarco - Linkedin

License

MIT. See LICENSE.