Sandboxes and computers

Use a Sandbox for code, files, and processes. Use a Computer when you need a visible desktop, a browser login, or human takeover. Use Docker Host when you need a durable, always-on URL.

miosa create my-box --wait     # provision a sandbox and wait until it is ready
miosa list                     # see all your sandboxes

A headless microVM that is persistent by default, with /workspace as the editable root, booted from a template (usually miosa-sandbox). The default size small is 2 vCPU, 4096 MiB RAM, and 10240 MiB disk, and responses carry a versioned resource_contract. See Sandboxes and Sizing and limits.

A Computer is a durable cloud Linux desktop (Xfce and Firefox) with screenshot, click, type, and streaming, plus human takeover. You embed or share it through computer.urls()["desktop_url"]. See Computers and Embed a live desktop.

timeout_sec is 1 to 86400 seconds, default 3600. always_on disables timeout enforcement subject to tenant policy. The timeout counts from the last activity, and expiry stops a persistent sandbox and destroys a non-persistent one. A sandbox also stops after 30 minutes idle by default on accounts created on or after October 11, 2026 (set idle_timeout_sec to 0 to disable), and a stopped sandbox wakes on the next request. See Timeouts and auto-stop.

creating, running, stopped, paused, error, and destroyed. paused exists only on a runtime that advertises pause, which is Firecracker today; SOMA has no pause. See Sandbox lifecycle.

No. Stop keeps the sandbox id and the disk, including files, installed packages, and enabled services; resume brings it back. Stop never keeps running processes. Pause (Firecracker only) keeps processes for up to 30 minutes, then behaves like a stop. Persistent means the sandbox survives a stop, not the loss of its host; the durability field says how many hosts hold the saved state. SOMA does not support persistence, pause, or snapshots yet. Destroy is what removes saved state. See Snapshots and persistence.

Restore builds a new sandbox from a checkpoint; fork branches a running sandbox into an independent one. Both leave the source unchanged. See Snapshots and persistence.

miosa snapshot save my-box before-upgrade   # pin a named restore point
miosa snapshot fork before-upgrade          # branch it into an independent sandbox

No. A snapshot captures the sandbox disk and, where the runtime advertises it, memory only. External databases, object storage, connectors, and third-party services are not rolled back with it. Keep durable state in a data service. See Data overview.