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 App Engine 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. A sandbox also pauses 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 paused sandbox wakes on the next request. See Timeouts and auto-stop.

provisioning, running, paused, error, and destroyed. See Sandbox lifecycle.

No. Pause keeps the sandbox id and the filesystem; resume brings it back. 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 VM state 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.