---
title: "Sandboxes"
description: "The isolated dev environments where agents work"
canonical_url: "https://hoplite.sh/docs/sandboxes"
markdown_url: "https://hoplite.sh/docs/sandboxes.md"
---

# Sandboxes
URL: /docs/sandboxes
LLM index: /llms.txt
Description: The isolated dev environments where agents work
Related: /docs/sandboxes/scripts, /docs/sandboxes/previews, /docs/sandboxes/environment-variables, /docs/sandboxes/resources

# Sandboxes

Every thread gets a **workspace** backed by an isolated sandbox runtime, with your repository cloned, your [environment variables](/docs/sandboxes/environment-variables) injected, and your [setup script](/docs/sandboxes/scripts) applied. The agent installs dependencies, runs your tests, starts your dev server, and drives a browser against it.

## What's preconfigured

- **Your repository**, cloned on the branch the thread targets
- **Git identity and credentials** scoped to the repo, plus the `gh` CLI, so commits, pushes, and PR operations just work
- **Your environment variables**, injected into every command the agent runs
- **A persistent browser** the agent uses to verify its work

## In this section

- **[Project scripts](/docs/sandboxes/scripts)** — `.hoplite/settings.json`: setup, run, and archive scripts, ports, and how overrides resolve
- **[Previews](/docs/sandboxes/previews)** — live preview URLs for your running app, and the in-thread preview and terminal panels
- **[Environment variables](/docs/sandboxes/environment-variables)** — encrypted per-project secrets
- **[Resources](/docs/sandboxes/resources)** — CPU, memory, and disk, and how the agent scales them

## Lifecycle

The workspace is durable product state, while its provider runtime is replaceable. Depending on the provider, archiving may suspend the runtime or save a filesystem artifact before terminating it; the next operation resumes or restores it behind the same thread. Provider runtime limits are capability metadata today and do not trigger automatic idle archival. If a runtime gets into a bad state, the agent (or you, via the terminal panel) can restart it, and disruptive operations require approval because they can kill running processes.

## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](/docs/sitemap.md) for all pages.
Well-known sitemap: [/docs/.well-known/sitemap.md](/docs/.well-known/sitemap.md).