Introduction

Your machines, the original clients#

Engine Box prepares Linux workspaces and runs the official Codex, Claude Code and Cursor Agent clients inside them. A controller manages your hosts, templates, account connections and workspace lifecycle through a dashboard, HTTP API and MCP server.

The clients keep their own agent loops, tools and provider connections. Engine Box supplies the environment around them. Provider plan eligibility, usage limits and charges still apply.

Controller, nodes and workspaces#

• Controller: your fleet inventory, template registry, private account connections and operation queue.
• Nodes: Linux machines with Incus/KVM, explicit resource limits and prepared templates.
• Workspaces: private VMs with a native agent home, project files and optional browser tools.

A credential-free template or unused warm reserve is reusable. Once a workspace is assigned, its home, files and checkpoints are private. It never returns to the fresh reserve pool.

Prepare once, reuse deliberately#

Templates carry installed clients and tools. Warm pools keep never-used VMs ready to assign. The first-class LayerFS backend adds approved checkout imports, immutable dependency reuse and private writable file branches on qualified Linux nodes.

Compute, project files and native agent state have different lifetimes. A file checkpoint preserves files; it does not preserve a process's RAM or a live network connection. Read Storage and Agent state before choosing a reuse policy.

A persistent project, disposable agent forks#

The next application workflow keeps one persistent core environment following your main branch. Its data survives code updates, and an optional dev command starts the application. The core publishes consistent data revisions for disposable agent environments with private writable state.

This managed service is planned. The current workspaces and storage are its foundation. See the environment design and availability matrix for the boundary.

Self-hosting and the license#

Engine Box is source-available under the Business Source License 1.1. Personal, non-commercial and non-production use is free. Production use by a business needs a license at $10 per node per month. Offering it to others as a hosted service requires a separate agreement. This is not an OSI open-source license.

Read Licensing and pricing and the license for the exact terms, then start with the source quickstart.