Develop apps in a Codex sandbox

AgentKit sandboxes provide cloud development environments where you can build applications with coding agents such as Codex. A tool defines environment properties such as compute and networking, while a session retains the files and running state for one development flow. See Use sandboxes for all options.

Configure AK/SK credentials or obtain valid short-lived STS credentials through agentkit login. To inject a local Codex subscription into the sandbox, first complete codex login on your machine.

Creating a sandbox tool allocates cloud compute resources and may incur charges. Commands can access the files, network, and credentials visible to the session. Work only with trusted code and least-privilege access. Session and tool deletion cannot be undone, so download required files before cleanup.

End-to-end flow

Create a development tool

Create a CodeEnv tool. The CLI waits for it to become ready and writes its ID and name to .agentkit/sandbox.yaml in the current project.

agentkit sandbox create --tool-type CodeEnv --tool-name dev-sandbox

If the project already has a suitable tool, skip this step and select it in later commands with --tool-id or --tool-name.

Inject Codex login credentials

Inject the local Codex subscription into a dedicated session. Reuse the same --session-id in later commands to return to that session.

sandbox codex-login copies local subscription credentials to a remote session. Do not share that session, and delete the session or tool after use. Add --dry-run first to inspect the redacted injection operation.

agentkit sandbox codex-login \
  --tool-name dev-sandbox \
  --session-id dev \
  --provider codex

Use --auth-file or --codex-home to select another credential source. Set the provider to claude to inject a local Claude subscription instead.

Upload the project and open a terminal

sandbox exec provides an interactive terminal. --copy uploads the project before connection, and --mode tmux creates or attaches to a persistent terminal named after the session ID.

agentkit sandbox exec \
  --tool-name dev-sandbox \
  --session-id dev \
  --mode tmux \
  --copy ./my-app sandbox:/home/gem/my-app \
  --command "cd /home/gem/my-app && codex"

Press Ctrl-] to detach. Run the same command again to return to the session. After saving the tool name in .agentkit/sandbox.yaml, later commands can omit --tool-name.

Transfer files

After the session exists, use sandbox scp to copy files or directories between local and sandbox paths. Prefix remote paths with sandbox:.

# Upload
agentkit sandbox scp ./local.txt sandbox:/home/gem/my-app/local.txt --session-id dev

# Download
agentkit sandbox scp sandbox:/home/gem/my-app/result.json ./result.json --session-id dev

Open a web preview

Start a web server that listens on an externally accessible port in the persistent terminal, then open its preview:

agentkit sandbox web --tool-name dev-sandbox --session-id dev

Add --no-open when a browser should not open automatically; the command outputs the preview URL.

Clean up resources

Confirm that required files have been downloaded. To delete only the development session, identify both the tool and session. To delete the entire tool, omit the session ID.

# Delete the session
agentkit sandbox delete --tool-name dev-sandbox --session-id dev --force

# Delete the tool and its resources
agentkit sandbox delete --tool-name dev-sandbox --force

Scripted execution

sandbox shell runs one non-interactive command in a session and outputs JSON, making it suitable for scripts:

agentkit sandbox shell \
  --tool-name dev-sandbox \
  --session-id dev \
  --command "cd /home/gem/my-app && npm test"

To orchestrate multiple sandbox exec tasks, write entries in agentkit-sandbox-run.yaml, then run agentkit sandbox run --config agentkit-sandbox-run.yaml. See the sandbox command reference for the configuration format.

Practical guidance

Reuse a fixed --session-id for the development environment, and inspect locally cached sessions with agentkit sandbox list.
When a project has multiple tools, pass --tool-id or --tool-name explicitly to avoid connecting to the wrong environment.
Use sandbox exec --mode tmux for long-running interactive work, and regularly download important results to local or persistent storage.
Delete sessions and tools when they are no longer needed to stop consuming cloud resources.

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命令参考

End-to-end flow

Scripted execution

Practical guidance

​End-to-end flow

​Scripted execution

​Practical guidance

End-to-end flow

Scripted execution

Practical guidance