Hopbox

Self-hosted · Firecracker microVMs · live now

Compute boxes
over SSH.

One ssh command spins up a real Linux microVM — hardware-isolated, sub-second boot, your key as identity. One daemon, a fleet of isolated boxes — shared by humans and AIs.

ssh box@box.hopbox.dev

It's live — that command drops you into a fresh microVM on our public host. No signup.

Read the docs Run it yourself

# your SSH key is your identity — no signup, no console$ ssh myproject@box.hopbox.dev⟳ booting microVM · ubuntu · 0.4sroot@myproject:~# uname -r6.1.0-hopbox  (a real kernel, hardware-isolated)root@myproject:~# # idle → suspends to disk, wakes from snapshotroot@myproject:~#

One engine, two kinds of actor

Boxes for humans. The same fleet for AIs.

Hopbox is self-hosted, top to bottom — your host, your keys, your boxes. One daemon — hopboxd — turns a host into a fleet of isolated boxes. Humans reach them over plain SSH; AIs drive the same fleet over a built-in MCP control plane.

● boxes — over SSH

Compute boxes over SSH

A Firecracker microVM the moment you connect.

Point SSH at a hopbox host and a microVM boots on connect: a real Linux kernel, hardware-isolated, sub-second cold start. Your SSH key is the only credential — the username is the box spec.

Durable disk — survives suspend/resume, restart and host reboot.
Auto-suspend to disk when idle; your next connection resumes it, processes and TCP intact.
Images & flavors — name:python:big@host; ssh images@host lists the catalog.
Persistent homes that outlive the box, snapshots — capture, fork, restore.
Detached jobs — box-guest run keeps a box alive until the work is done.
Zero-install management — ssh cli@host: ls, snapshot, clone, account. Verify with GitHub for the durable tier.

ssh myproject@box.hopbox.dev

◆ AI-control plane — MCP

An AI drives the same fleet

Built into the daemon, not bolted on.

Any MCP client gets the whole plane: live fleet state pushed as it changes, declarative task delegation, and interactive canvases a human drives while the AI watches — real boxes, not a simulation.

hopbox://fleet — every box, live; subscribe and react, never poll.
box.delegate / fleet.apply — spawn boxes and run tasks, declaratively.
The canvas loop — the AI renders a UI, the human clicks, interactions are pushed back.
Self-describing images — every image ships a SKILL.md an agent can read.
box-guest mcp — an in-box MCP server, so an agent manages its own sandbox.
Taught on connect — the server's MCP instructions explain the whole plane to any client.

hopbox-mcp ps --connect unix:/run/hopboxd-mcp.sock

ssh for humans · MCP for AIs · one engine underneath

Why boxes over SSH

Real isolation. Zero ceremony.

SSH is the entire interface. The username carries the spec, your key carries the identity — and a hardware-isolated VM does the rest.

❯

One command, a whole VM

ssh name@host and you're root in a fresh microVM. No signup, no cloud console, no provisioning step.

⚡

Sub-second boot

Firecracker cold-starts in a fraction of a second. Idle boxes suspend to a snapshot and resume on reconnect — processes and open sockets intact.

🔒

Hardware isolation

Each box is its own KVM guest with a real kernel — not a shared-kernel container. Network-isolated with an egress firewall by default.

💾

Durable, not disposable

Disk survives suspend, restart and host reboots; named boxes get a persistent home. Verify with GitHub and your boxes are never reaped.

📦

Image catalog

ssh images@host lists them; ssh name:debian-12@host picks one — pre-tooled with git, vim and the basics.

🤖

Agent-ready

box-guest ships an in-box CLI and MCP server, so an AI agent inside a box can manage its own sandbox.

Try it · self-host

Run it now, or run it yourself.

The public host is one SSH command away. When you want your own, it's a single installer — docker-backed in one command, or a complete microVM host with the zero-touch provisioner.

Get started

Runs on your own host — the deploy guide has the details.

try it Drop into a box on our host