Sandbox Lifecycles
Documentation and guides for OutcomeDev.
OutcomeDev uses an ephemeral compute model designed to maximize agent speed while protecting your runtime budget. This system relies on two core concepts: Sandboxes and Timeboxes.
1. The Task Sandbox
Every task you start is allocated a dedicated, isolated cloud VM (a Sandbox). This environment contains your code, dependencies, and any tools the agent needs to execute.
Sandbox States
- Active: The VM is powered on and the agent is actively executing.
- Warm (Idle): The agent has finished its current step, but the VM remains "hot" for 5 minutes. This allows you to send follow-up messages with instant response times.
- Keep Alive: An optional mode where the VM stays hot indefinitely (until your budget runs out). Use this for complex, multi-step engineering sessions where state persistence is critical.
- Reclaimed: The VM has been powered down to save credits. Sending a new message will trigger a "Cold Start" (30-90 seconds to re-provision).
2. The Task Timebox
The Timebox is your safety valve. It represents the maximum amount of compute time allocated to a specific task.
How Billing Works
- Live VM = Billed Time: As long as a Sandbox is active or in a "Warm" state, it consumes your runtime budget.
- Idle Charging: We charge for the 5-minute warm window because it provides a significant performance benefit for follow-up interactions.
- Stopping: You can freeze your budget at any time by clicking "Stop Sandbox" in the task interface. This immediately reclaims the VM and stops the clock.
3. Best Practices
- Use Keep Alive for R&D: When you are iterating rapidly on a complex feature, Keep Alive prevents the delay of cold starts.
- Manual Stop for Efficiency: If you know you won't be following up on a task for a while, stop the sandbox manually to preserve your credits.
- Cold Starts are Free: You are never billed for the time it takes to provision a new sandbox or clone your repository. Billing only begins once the agent starts working.
By combining ephemeral sandboxes with precise timeboxing, OutcomeDev ensures you only pay for the compute you actually use to reach your desired result.