Drop is a Linux sandboxing tool with a focus on a productive local workflow. Drop allows you to easily create sandboxed environments that isolate executed programs while preserving as many aspects of your work environment as possible. Drop uses your existing distribution - your installed programs, your username, filesystem paths, config files carry over into the sandbox.

The workflow is inspired by Python's virtualenv: create an environment, enter it, work normally - but with enforced sandboxing. To create a new Drop environment and run a sandboxed shell you simply:

alice@zax:~/project$ drop init && drop run bash

(drop) alice@zax:~/project$ # you are in the sandbox, but your tools and configs are still here.

The need for a tool like Drop had been with me for a long time. I felt uneasy installing and running out-of-distro programs with huge dependency trees and no isolation. On the other hand I dreaded the naked root@b0fecb:/# Docker shell. The main thing that makes Docker great for deploying software - a reproducible, minimal environment - gets in the way of productive development work: tools are missing from a container; config files and environment variables are all unavailable.

The last straw that made me start building Drop was LLM agents. To work well - compile code, run tests, analyze git logs - agents need access to tools installed on the machine. But giving agents unrestricted access is so clearly risky, that almost every HN discussion on agentic workflows includes a rant about a lack of sandboxing.

Drop uses Linux user namespaces (no root required) as the main isolation mechanism, with passt/pasta used for isolated networking.

I'd love to hear what you think.