Show HN: I Built a Sandbox for Agents

https://github.com/vrn21/bouvet.com

28•vrn21•2h ago

Comments

bosky101•1h ago

The right link is https://github.com/vrn21/bouvet

nadis•31m ago

Thank you.

ripped_britches•1h ago

Why is it a problem to use containers?

_pdp_•1h ago

We use a service but it is always nice to have a free option if you need it. Good stuff.

canadiantim•1h ago

This relies on the agent requesting a sandbox... which seems like the fox guarding the hen house, no?

monomial•1h ago

Is this a common pattern to have an agent request a sandbox? I feel like I'd want the whole agent running in it's own sandbox to begin with. Firecracker does look like a decent solution for that.

mccraveiro•1h ago

I agree. I'm testing https://sprites.dev/ because of that.

sahiljagtapyc•1h ago

interesting

debarshri•1h ago

Can someone elaborate with whats wrong with having containers for sandbox?

binsquare•1h ago

It's because containers share the kernel with the host. Generally it's just not considered a security boundary. (Note that containers have come a longer way in the security side btw)

So it's a mostly security thing.

debarshri•1h ago

But in the context of agents. Does it matter?

tptacek•1h ago

Depends. Probably not usually. I've thought about this a bunch and I think the serious "threat" here isn't the agent acting maliciously --- though agents will break out of non-hardened sandboxes! --- but rather them exposing some vulnerability that an actual human attacker exploits.

buu700•39m ago

I'd also add that I just don't like the idea in principle that I should have to trust the agent not to act maliciously. If an agent can run rm -rf / in an extreme edge case, theoretically it could also execute a container escape.

Maybe vanishingly unlikely in practice, but it costs me almost nothing to use a VM just in case. It's not impossible that certain models turn out to be poorly behaved, that attackers successfully execute indirect prompt injection via malicious tutorials targeting coding agents, or that some shadowy figure runs a plausibly deniable attack against me through an LLM API.

aghilmort•59m ago

security matters if want to demarc where agents can play. running agent inside of strong VM is usually where starts container not enough for that full isolation only sees files you want it to etc

binsquare•55m ago

Imo it's even more important in context of agents, if these agents are as good as it's going to get with as much access as we let them.

starlust2•54m ago

One could theoretically use a prompt injection attack to exploit a privilege escalation vulnerability on the kernel.

ATechGuy•39m ago

What about VMs? They offer strong isolation, as they don't share kernels, and have long been a foundational piece for multi-tenant computing. Then, why would we put an extra layer on top and rebrand it as an AI agent sandboxing solution? I'm genuinely curious what pushes everyone to build their own and launch here Is it one of those tarpit ideas: driven by own need and easy to build?

Ronsenshi•1h ago

From what I read others say at some point on HN:

- resources

- security

- setup speed?

I suppose a lot depends on how and in what environment you're dealing with agents.

Resources might be an issue on Mac if you have bunch of agents running different things, trying to execute code in different containers. But that's the issue of Mac and the way containers are running in a VM there.

Security-wise there were concerns with prompt injection telling agent to execute certain steps to escape from container. Possible, but I'm not aware if there were actually cases of that.

tomasphan•1h ago

Seems these thing pop up here ever so often. Either using firecracker or docker/containers. How is this different from the other sandboxes? BTW I love that you got LLM testimonials lol

binsquare•1h ago

I'm building an alternative to firecracker here if you're looking for something wayy different: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

aghilmort•1h ago

we've considered docker, firecracker, will add smol to working roster

context <> building something with QEMU

* required has to support LMW+AI (linux/mac/windows + android/ios)

there are scenarios in which we might spin micro vms inside that main vm, which by default is almost always Debian Linux distro with high probability.

one scenario is say ETL vm and AI vm isolated for various things

curious why building another microVM other than sheer joy of building, what smol does better or different, why use smol, etc. (microVMs to avoid etc also fair game :)

jkelleyrtp•56m ago

I needed Mac / win/ Linux / iOS / android for dioxus dev, so I built my own in rust.

https://skyvm.dev/

binsquare•42m ago

I focus on different design decisions.

Smolvm is designed to run locally, persistent (stateful), long running (efficiency), and interactive.

Worked with firecracker and other options a lot btw, most of everything is designed for ephemeral serverless workloads.

binsquare•1h ago

Cool option, I'm building in the same space. We should chat!

avaer•1h ago

Given that this is using Firecracker, is it Linux only?

coip•1h ago

Anyone have any thoughts on this path if using macOS? Been using it, seems to do the trick pretty well out of the box.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Virtualization/run...

aghilmort•57m ago

interesting is the idea the agent calls it or just alt to terminal bash etc tool calls hey your tool calls are all microvms, containers, isoshells, raw term, clawd/molt all credentials with weaker and weaker security demarcs?

FEELmyAGI•56m ago

Great idea that is already implemented as a feature by major AI providers, several well funded startups, countless unfunded startups, and trivially solved per-user with any handful of existing technologies.

Truly baffling its in the top 5 of the front page. My first thought was bot army upvoting but the total points are quite low. That means this is some mod's personal idea of an especially interesting submission?

arscan•49m ago

Having testimonials attributed to Gemini 3 Pro and Claude 4.5 Opus is... interesting. I'm curious what prompt was used to get those quotes.

ATechGuy•48m ago

Congrats on launching, and great testimonials!

What problem does it solve compared to bazillion code execution sandboxing agents (and containers/VMs)?

Overall, a lot of people are building their own code execution sandboxing agents around containers/VMs. Curious to know what's missing that makes people DIY this?

Here's my list of code execution sandboxing agents launched in the last year alone:

1. E2B 2. AIO Sandbox 3. Sandboxer 4. AgentSphere 5. Yolobox 6. Exe.dev 7. yolo-cage 8. SkillFS ERA Jazzberry Computer Vibekit Daytona Modal Cognitora YepCode Run Compute CLI Fence Landrun Sprites pctx-sandbox pctx Sandbox Agent SDK Lima-devbox OpenServ Browser Agent Playground Flintlock Agent Quickstart Bouvet Sandbox Arrakis Cellmate (ceLLMate) AgentFence Tasker

nadis•31m ago

Getting a 404 page not found for this project - how can I try it?