Choosing a Sandbox for AI Agents

Sandbox lock-in compounds invisibly through isolation, state formats, and orchestration layers.

Persistence means three separate things, and few platforms deliver all three.

Compares how sandbox providers handle snapshot, fork, and pause.

Filesystem scoping and quotas matter more than compute isolation for bulk-file agents.

Models improve faster than sandboxes can adapt to contain them.

Network egress controls are the lock that actually stops stolen data from escaping.

AI agents need isolation criteria tailored to untrusted, autonomous code execution.

Models now sustain fourteen-hour tasks, but single-shot sandboxes weren't built for that.