{"slug": "sprites", "name": "Sprites", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "Fly.io's persistent, checkpointable Linux sandbox VMs for running code and AI agents.", "recommenders": 7, "commenters": 11, "warners": 2, "score": 4.54, "rising": -2.29, "first": "2026-01-10", "latest": "2026-08-20", "why": "Liked as a safe sandbox for letting AI agents run freely and as a cheap home for small personal apps and side projects.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 8, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 0, 6, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Agent sandboxing", "Personal apps"], "caveat": "Terminal access", "short_quote": "I really like the product created by fly.io's https://sprites.dev/ for AI's sandboxes effectively.", "icon": true, "domain": "sprites.dev", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://sprites.dev/", "pricing": "paid", "aliases": ["Sprites"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked as a safe sandbox for letting AI agents run freely", "cites": [{"id": 745531328, "item_id": 46595708, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46595708", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I really like the product created by fly.io's https://sprites.dev/ for AI's sandboxes effectively.", "excerpt": "I really like the product created by fly.io's https://sprites.dev/ for AI's sandboxes effectively. I feel like its really apt here (not sponsored lmao wish I was) Oh btw if someone wants to run servers via qemu, I highly recommend quickemu. It provides default ssh access,sshfs, vnc,spice and all such ports to just your local device of course and also allows one to install debian or any distro (out of many many distro", "context": "", "use_case": "AI agent sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Remote Code Execution in OpenCode, update now"}, {"id": 745444416, "item_id": 46590276, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46590276", "by": "Zababa", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda.", "excerpt": "> Rather: an intended part of the ordinary course of using a Sprite. Like git, but for the whole system. What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda. >For reasons we\u2019ll get into when we write up how we built these things, you wouldn\u2019t want to ship an app to millions of people on a Sprite. But most apps don\u2019t want to serve mil", "context": "", "use_case": "safe sandboxes for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}]}, {"text": " and as a cheap home for small personal apps and side projects.", "cites": [{"id": 776139888, "item_id": 48508743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48508743", "by": "nihakue", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I'm bullish on things like https://sprites.dev/ (not affiliated, just a customer).", "excerpt": "https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ This has never been truer than right now. What we need isn't app store ecoystems but to eliminate the friction for distributing apps to your inner circle. We're entering the WhatsApp era of software, where everyone is going to be using a home cooked version of every piece of software that can conceivably exist on an island, and it's going to be a vibe coded mess, but ", "context": "customer, builds small apps for family", "use_case": "hosting home-cooked apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Not a Reverse Centaur"}, {"id": 745181104, "item_id": 46573819, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46573819", "by": "mcintyre1994", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks like a really interesting solution, I can just store the data on a sprite with SQLite or whatever.", "excerpt": "Okay this is super interesting! As I was reading this I was a bit confused by the issues they mention, but at work I use Claude SSHed to a persistent dev server and I\u2019d be annoyed if I didn\u2019t have eg my git repos there all the time or any part of that workflow was ephemeral. I\u2019m not really aware of what everyone else is doing with sandboxes etc. But the bit at the end with the MDM server made it click for me. I\u2019ve st", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent personal software", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745184416, "item_id": 46574026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574026", "by": "phelm", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off.", "excerpt": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off. I had a few issues 1. manpath: can't set the locale; make sure $LC_* and $LANG are correct suspect this is due to it inheriting locale from my local machine? easy to get around with some updates to .bashrc 2. the $SHELL environment in my sprite is `/opt/homebrew/bin/fish` I use fish on my local (ma", "context": "", "use_case": "dev sandbox", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 750000768, "item_id": 46875048, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46875048", "by": "nihakue", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "See also Sprites (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557825) which I've been using and really enjoying.", "excerpt": "See also Sprites (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557825) which I've been using and really enjoying. There are some key architecture differences between the two, but very similar surface area. It'll be interesting to see if ephemeral + snapshots can be as convenient as stateful with cloning/forking (which hasn't actually dropped yet, although the fly team say it's coming). Will give these a try. These are exci", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed environments for side projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "Deno Sandbox"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaints are awkward terminal access that needs their CLI or HTTP API", "cites": [{"id": 790003472, "item_id": 49375217, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375217", "by": "threecheese", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "My main delta for Sprites is the lack of an accessible tty", "excerpt": "My main delta for Sprites is the lack of an accessible tty, or more specifically the need to use either a cli tool to get a terminal, or use/make an abstraction over their http api, to interact as an end user. I get this is part of the tradeoff to get a low cost. But that cli tool serves as basically an ssh client that isn\u2019t already on every environment I\u2019m using, and I can\u2019t put it everywhere. Looking for open sourc", "context": "runs agents on VMs", "use_case": "running agents in sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Computers Compared"}, {"id": 746238368, "item_id": 46639898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46639898", "by": "blackqueeriroh", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love sprites.", "excerpt": "I love sprites. I\u2019m currently trying g to figure out how to best launch and connect to sprites from iOS. I\u2019ve tried several things - vibe coding a terminal app is a little wild and not the best way maybe to handle this. I believe currently the sprites CLI is using websockets to handle the connection, and the external proxy when you make a sprite public doesn\u2019t handle websockets correctly? Does that sound right?", "context": "", "use_case": "remote sandboxes from iOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Design and Implementation of Sprites"}]}, {"text": ", plus unclear documentation and setup quirks.", "cites": [{"id": 745106448, "item_id": 46569153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569153", "by": "psanford", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Playing around with this for a small amount of time, it is very neat but also there are a bunch of things that are unclear / undocumented", "excerpt": "Playing around with this for a small amount of time, it is very neat but also there are a bunch of things that are unclear / undocumented (I assume the documentation is coming so I'm not faulting them for it not being there yet). Some things that are unclear: - How should I auth to github? sprite console doesn't use ssh (afaik) so I guess not agent forwarding? - What on machine api's are available? Can I use the fly ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745184416, "item_id": 46574026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574026", "by": "phelm", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off.", "excerpt": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off. I had a few issues 1. manpath: can't set the locale; make sure $LC_* and $LANG are correct suspect this is due to it inheriting locale from my local machine? easy to get around with some updates to .bashrc 2. the $SHELL environment in my sprite is `/opt/homebrew/bin/fish` I use fish on my local (ma", "context": "", "use_case": "dev sandbox", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 781209648, "item_id": 48825603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48825603", "by": "constantius", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "resorted to running the harness in a sprite[0] in a proot distro[1] in termux", "excerpt": "Just yesterday I needed this and resorted to running the harness in a sprite[0] in a proot distro[1] in termux: while I appreciated the symbolism of recurrence, it was a pain to set up. Will have a look. [0]: https://sprites.dev/ [1]: https://github.com/termux/proot-distro", "context": "", "use_case": "running coding agent harness", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Shellular \u2013 run Claude Code, Codex, Pi from your phone"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Agent sandboxing", "summary": "Commenters use it to let AI agents run freely while staying contained.", "quotes": [{"id": 745444416, "item_id": 46590276, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46590276", "by": "Zababa", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda.", "excerpt": "> Rather: an intended part of the ordinary course of using a Sprite. Like git, but for the whole system. What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda. >For reasons we\u2019ll get into when we write up how we built these things, you wouldn\u2019t want to ship an app to millions of people on a Sprite. But most apps don\u2019t want to serve mil", "context": "", "use_case": "safe sandboxes for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745531328, "item_id": 46595708, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46595708", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I really like the product created by fly.io's https://sprites.dev/ for AI's sandboxes effectively.", "excerpt": "I really like the product created by fly.io's https://sprites.dev/ for AI's sandboxes effectively. I feel like its really apt here (not sponsored lmao wish I was) Oh btw if someone wants to run servers via qemu, I highly recommend quickemu. It provides default ssh access,sshfs, vnc,spice and all such ports to just your local device of course and also allows one to install debian or any distro (out of many many distro", "context": "", "use_case": "AI agent sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Remote Code Execution in OpenCode, update now"}, {"id": 781209648, "item_id": 48825603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48825603", "by": "constantius", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "resorted to running the harness in a sprite[0] in a proot distro[1] in termux", "excerpt": "Just yesterday I needed this and resorted to running the harness in a sprite[0] in a proot distro[1] in termux: while I appreciated the symbolism of recurrence, it was a pain to set up. Will have a look. [0]: https://sprites.dev/ [1]: https://github.com/termux/proot-distro", "context": "", "use_case": "running coding agent harness", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Shellular \u2013 run Claude Code, Codex, Pi from your phone"}]}, {"label": "Personal apps", "summary": "Seen as a good fit for small home-cooked apps that only serve a few people.", "quotes": [{"id": 776139888, "item_id": 48508743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48508743", "by": "nihakue", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I'm bullish on things like https://sprites.dev/ (not affiliated, just a customer).", "excerpt": "https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ This has never been truer than right now. What we need isn't app store ecoystems but to eliminate the friction for distributing apps to your inner circle. We're entering the WhatsApp era of software, where everyone is going to be using a home cooked version of every piece of software that can conceivably exist on an island, and it's going to be a vibe coded mess, but ", "context": "customer, builds small apps for family", "use_case": "hosting home-cooked apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Not a Reverse Centaur"}, {"id": 745444416, "item_id": 46590276, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46590276", "by": "Zababa", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda.", "excerpt": "> Rather: an intended part of the ordinary course of using a Sprite. Like git, but for the whole system. What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda. >For reasons we\u2019ll get into when we write up how we built these things, you wouldn\u2019t want to ship an app to millions of people on a Sprite. But most apps don\u2019t want to serve mil", "context": "", "use_case": "safe sandboxes for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745181104, "item_id": 46573819, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46573819", "by": "mcintyre1994", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks like a really interesting solution, I can just store the data on a sprite with SQLite or whatever.", "excerpt": "Okay this is super interesting! As I was reading this I was a bit confused by the issues they mention, but at work I use Claude SSHed to a persistent dev server and I\u2019d be annoyed if I didn\u2019t have eg my git repos there all the time or any part of that workflow was ephemeral. I\u2019m not really aware of what everyone else is doing with sandboxes etc. But the bit at the end with the MDM server made it click for me. I\u2019ve st", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent personal software", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}]}, {"label": "Enjoyable to use", "summary": "Several users say they love the product and enjoy using it.", "quotes": [{"id": 746238368, "item_id": 46639898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46639898", "by": "blackqueeriroh", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love sprites.", "excerpt": "I love sprites. I\u2019m currently trying g to figure out how to best launch and connect to sprites from iOS. I\u2019ve tried several things - vibe coding a terminal app is a little wild and not the best way maybe to handle this. I believe currently the sprites CLI is using websockets to handle the connection, and the external proxy when you make a sprite public doesn\u2019t handle websockets correctly? Does that sound right?", "context": "", "use_case": "remote sandboxes from iOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Design and Implementation of Sprites"}, {"id": 750000768, "item_id": 46875048, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46875048", "by": "nihakue", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "See also Sprites (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557825) which I've been using and really enjoying.", "excerpt": "See also Sprites (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557825) which I've been using and really enjoying. There are some key architecture differences between the two, but very similar surface area. It'll be interesting to see if ephemeral + snapshots can be as convenient as stateful with cloning/forking (which hasn't actually dropped yet, although the fly team say it's coming). Will give these a try. These are exci", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed environments for side projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "Deno Sandbox"}, {"id": 747072160, "item_id": 46692010, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692010", "by": "karlmdavis", "date": "2026-01-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love absolutely everything about this\u2026 except for the lack of cross-platform support.", "excerpt": "I love absolutely everything about this\u2026 except for the lack of cross-platform support. I know how ludicrous it is to expect that, but\u2026 most workflows I\u2019m considering solutions like this for are crippled by their inability to run Xcode or a native Windows build. Heck, I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ll even run into glibc version mismatches that block work I care about. Frustrating that the best solution is still, \u201cwell, if that\u2019s", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed dev workflows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Design and Implementation of Sprites"}]}, {"label": "Low cost", "summary": "Users value a dev sandbox that won't run up a large bill if left on.", "quotes": [{"id": 745184416, "item_id": 46574026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574026", "by": "phelm", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off.", "excerpt": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off. I had a few issues 1. manpath: can't set the locale; make sure $LC_* and $LANG are correct suspect this is due to it inheriting locale from my local machine? easy to get around with some updates to .bashrc 2. the $SHELL environment in my sprite is `/opt/homebrew/bin/fish` I use fish on my local (ma", "context": "", "use_case": "dev sandbox", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 790003472, "item_id": 49375217, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375217", "by": "threecheese", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "My main delta for Sprites is the lack of an accessible tty", "excerpt": "My main delta for Sprites is the lack of an accessible tty, or more specifically the need to use either a cli tool to get a terminal, or use/make an abstraction over their http api, to interact as an end user. I get this is part of the tradeoff to get a low cost. But that cli tool serves as basically an ssh client that isn\u2019t already on every environment I\u2019m using, and I can\u2019t put it everywhere. Looking for open sourc", "context": "runs agents on VMs", "use_case": "running agents in sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Computers Compared"}]}, {"label": "Persistent state", "summary": "Whole-system checkpoints and persistent storage, such as SQLite on a sprite, are appreciated.", "quotes": [{"id": 745444416, "item_id": 46590276, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46590276", "by": "Zababa", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda.", "excerpt": "> Rather: an intended part of the ordinary course of using a Sprite. Like git, but for the whole system. What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda. >For reasons we\u2019ll get into when we write up how we built these things, you wouldn\u2019t want to ship an app to millions of people on a Sprite. But most apps don\u2019t want to serve mil", "context": "", "use_case": "safe sandboxes for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745181104, "item_id": 46573819, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46573819", "by": "mcintyre1994", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks like a really interesting solution, I can just store the data on a sprite with SQLite or whatever.", "excerpt": "Okay this is super interesting! As I was reading this I was a bit confused by the issues they mention, but at work I use Claude SSHed to a persistent dev server and I\u2019d be annoyed if I didn\u2019t have eg my git repos there all the time or any part of that workflow was ephemeral. I\u2019m not really aware of what everyone else is doing with sandboxes etc. But the bit at the end with the MDM server made it click for me. I\u2019ve st", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent personal software", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Terminal access", "summary": "There is no accessible tty, so you need their CLI or HTTP API, and websocket connections through the public proxy can cause trouble.", "quotes": [{"id": 790003472, "item_id": 49375217, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375217", "by": "threecheese", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "My main delta for Sprites is the lack of an accessible tty", "excerpt": "My main delta for Sprites is the lack of an accessible tty, or more specifically the need to use either a cli tool to get a terminal, or use/make an abstraction over their http api, to interact as an end user. I get this is part of the tradeoff to get a low cost. But that cli tool serves as basically an ssh client that isn\u2019t already on every environment I\u2019m using, and I can\u2019t put it everywhere. Looking for open sourc", "context": "runs agents on VMs", "use_case": "running agents in sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Computers Compared"}, {"id": 746238368, "item_id": 46639898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46639898", "by": "blackqueeriroh", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love sprites.", "excerpt": "I love sprites. I\u2019m currently trying g to figure out how to best launch and connect to sprites from iOS. I\u2019ve tried several things - vibe coding a terminal app is a little wild and not the best way maybe to handle this. I believe currently the sprites CLI is using websockets to handle the connection, and the external proxy when you make a sprite public doesn\u2019t handle websockets correctly? Does that sound right?", "context": "", "use_case": "remote sandboxes from iOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Design and Implementation of Sprites"}]}, {"label": "Unclear docs", "summary": "GitHub auth, the on-machine APIs and actual costs were hard to figure out.", "quotes": [{"id": 745106448, "item_id": 46569153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569153", "by": "psanford", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Playing around with this for a small amount of time, it is very neat but also there are a bunch of things that are unclear / undocumented", "excerpt": "Playing around with this for a small amount of time, it is very neat but also there are a bunch of things that are unclear / undocumented (I assume the documentation is coming so I'm not faulting them for it not being there yet). Some things that are unclear: - How should I auth to github? sprite console doesn't use ssh (afaik) so I guess not agent forwarding? - What on machine api's are available? Can I use the fly ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}]}, {"label": "Setup quirks", "summary": "Users hit inherited locale and shell settings, and found some setups painful to configure.", "quotes": [{"id": 745184416, "item_id": 46574026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574026", "by": "phelm", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off.", "excerpt": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off. I had a few issues 1. manpath: can't set the locale; make sure $LC_* and $LANG are correct suspect this is due to it inheriting locale from my local machine? easy to get around with some updates to .bashrc 2. the $SHELL environment in my sprite is `/opt/homebrew/bin/fish` I use fish on my local (ma", "context": "", "use_case": "dev sandbox", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 781209648, "item_id": 48825603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48825603", "by": "constantius", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "resorted to running the harness in a sprite[0] in a proot distro[1] in termux", "excerpt": "Just yesterday I needed this and resorted to running the harness in a sprite[0] in a proot distro[1] in termux: while I appreciated the symbolism of recurrence, it was a pain to set up. Will have a look. [0]: https://sprites.dev/ [1]: https://github.com/termux/proot-distro", "context": "", "use_case": "running coding agent harness", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Shellular \u2013 run Claude Code, Codex, Pi from your phone"}]}, {"label": "Linux only", "summary": "It can't run Xcode or native Windows builds, and glibc mismatches are a worry.", "quotes": [{"id": 747072160, "item_id": 46692010, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692010", "by": "karlmdavis", "date": "2026-01-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love absolutely everything about this\u2026 except for the lack of cross-platform support.", "excerpt": "I love absolutely everything about this\u2026 except for the lack of cross-platform support. I know how ludicrous it is to expect that, but\u2026 most workflows I\u2019m considering solutions like this for are crippled by their inability to run Xcode or a native Windows build. Heck, I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ll even run into glibc version mismatches that block work I care about. Frustrating that the best solution is still, \u201cwell, if that\u2019s", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed dev workflows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Design and Implementation of Sprites"}]}, {"label": "Market doubts", "summary": "One commenter thinks developers already have Docker and non-developers won't use it.", "quotes": [{"id": 784842418, "item_id": 49052651, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49052651", "by": "emerongi", "date": "2026-07-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Sprites seems like a solid lifestyle business for a few friends, not a startup that has taken funding.", "excerpt": "Sprites seems like a solid lifestyle business for a few friends, not a startup that has taken funding. As a developer, I use docker/podman. Works great. The new massive market that will open up, where grandma and grandpa are making apps, will be taken up by Lovable (and the like). Non-devs will not be using sprites. You\u2019re capturing some small percentage of existing developers. Make sure to return all the funding you", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fly.io CEO Kurt Mackey is stepping down"}]}], "who": [{"by": "nihakue", "context": "customer, builds small apps for family", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48508743", "date": "2026-06-12"}], "tags": ["for AI agent sandboxes", "for personal apps", "for side projects", "for dev sandboxes"], "use_cases": ["running agents in sandboxes", "running coding agent harness", "hosting home-cooked apps", "sandboxed environments for side projects", "sandboxed dev workflows", "remote sandboxes from ios"], "compared": [{"slug": "claude-code", "name": "Claude Code", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 745163616, "item_id": 46572726, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46572726", "by": "chrismccord", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been having so much fun working on sprites (and working with sprites)", "excerpt": "I've been having so much fun working on sprites (and working with sprites) the last the several months. There's some neat parts of the Elixir side of this we're going to open source soon. Also check out the 5 min demo we put out where I walk thru some sprite basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BfTLlwO4hw", "context": "works on Sprites", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557825", "title": "Code and Let Live", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46634450", "title": "Design and Implementation of Sprites", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49372904", "title": "Computers Compared", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49051369", "title": "Fly.io CEO Kurt Mackey is stepping down", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48818124", "title": "Show HN: Shellular \u2013 run Claude Code, Codex, Pi from your phone", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507282", "title": "I Am Not a Reverse Centaur", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 6}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-08": {"warn": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 790003472, "item_id": 49375217, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375217", "by": "threecheese", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "My main delta for Sprites is the lack of an accessible tty", "excerpt": "My main delta for Sprites is the lack of an accessible tty, or more specifically the need to use either a cli tool to get a terminal, or use/make an abstraction over their http api, to interact as an end user. I get this is part of the tradeoff to get a low cost. But that cli tool serves as basically an ssh client that isn\u2019t already on every environment I\u2019m using, and I can\u2019t put it everywhere. Looking for open sourc", "context": "runs agents on VMs", "use_case": "running agents in sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Computers Compared"}, {"id": 784842418, "item_id": 49052651, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49052651", "by": "emerongi", "date": "2026-07-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Sprites seems like a solid lifestyle business for a few friends, not a startup that has taken funding.", "excerpt": "Sprites seems like a solid lifestyle business for a few friends, not a startup that has taken funding. As a developer, I use docker/podman. Works great. The new massive market that will open up, where grandma and grandpa are making apps, will be taken up by Lovable (and the like). Non-devs will not be using sprites. You\u2019re capturing some small percentage of existing developers. Make sure to return all the funding you", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fly.io CEO Kurt Mackey is stepping down"}, {"id": 781209648, "item_id": 48825603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48825603", "by": "constantius", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "resorted to running the harness in a sprite[0] in a proot distro[1] in termux", "excerpt": "Just yesterday I needed this and resorted to running the harness in a sprite[0] in a proot distro[1] in termux: while I appreciated the symbolism of recurrence, it was a pain to set up. Will have a look. [0]: https://sprites.dev/ [1]: https://github.com/termux/proot-distro", "context": "", "use_case": "running coding agent harness", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Shellular \u2013 run Claude Code, Codex, Pi from your phone"}, {"id": 776139888, "item_id": 48508743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48508743", "by": "nihakue", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I'm bullish on things like https://sprites.dev/ (not affiliated, just a customer).", "excerpt": "https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ This has never been truer than right now. What we need isn't app store ecoystems but to eliminate the friction for distributing apps to your inner circle. We're entering the WhatsApp era of software, where everyone is going to be using a home cooked version of every piece of software that can conceivably exist on an island, and it's going to be a vibe coded mess, but ", "context": "customer, builds small apps for family", "use_case": "hosting home-cooked apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Not a Reverse Centaur"}, {"id": 750000768, "item_id": 46875048, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46875048", "by": "nihakue", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "See also Sprites (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557825) which I've been using and really enjoying.", "excerpt": "See also Sprites (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557825) which I've been using and really enjoying. There are some key architecture differences between the two, but very similar surface area. It'll be interesting to see if ephemeral + snapshots can be as convenient as stateful with cloning/forking (which hasn't actually dropped yet, although the fly team say it's coming). Will give these a try. These are exci", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed environments for side projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "Deno Sandbox"}, {"id": 747072160, "item_id": 46692010, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692010", "by": "karlmdavis", "date": "2026-01-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love absolutely everything about this\u2026 except for the lack of cross-platform support.", "excerpt": "I love absolutely everything about this\u2026 except for the lack of cross-platform support. I know how ludicrous it is to expect that, but\u2026 most workflows I\u2019m considering solutions like this for are crippled by their inability to run Xcode or a native Windows build. Heck, I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ll even run into glibc version mismatches that block work I care about. Frustrating that the best solution is still, \u201cwell, if that\u2019s", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed dev workflows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Design and Implementation of Sprites"}, {"id": 746238368, "item_id": 46639898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46639898", "by": "blackqueeriroh", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love sprites.", "excerpt": "I love sprites. I\u2019m currently trying g to figure out how to best launch and connect to sprites from iOS. I\u2019ve tried several things - vibe coding a terminal app is a little wild and not the best way maybe to handle this. I believe currently the sprites CLI is using websockets to handle the connection, and the external proxy when you make a sprite public doesn\u2019t handle websockets correctly? Does that sound right?", "context": "", "use_case": "remote sandboxes from iOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Design and Implementation of Sprites"}, {"id": 745531328, "item_id": 46595708, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46595708", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I really like the product created by fly.io's https://sprites.dev/ for AI's sandboxes effectively.", "excerpt": "I really like the product created by fly.io's https://sprites.dev/ for AI's sandboxes effectively. I feel like its really apt here (not sponsored lmao wish I was) Oh btw if someone wants to run servers via qemu, I highly recommend quickemu. It provides default ssh access,sshfs, vnc,spice and all such ports to just your local device of course and also allows one to install debian or any distro (out of many many distro", "context": "", "use_case": "AI agent sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Remote Code Execution in OpenCode, update now"}, {"id": 745444416, "item_id": 46590276, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46590276", "by": "Zababa", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda.", "excerpt": "> Rather: an intended part of the ordinary course of using a Sprite. Like git, but for the whole system. What I've been waiting for, for a long time. Basically the thing you need if you want agents to run freely but still in a safe way kinda. >For reasons we\u2019ll get into when we write up how we built these things, you wouldn\u2019t want to ship an app to millions of people on a Sprite. But most apps don\u2019t want to serve mil", "context": "", "use_case": "safe sandboxes for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745184416, "item_id": 46574026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574026", "by": "phelm", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off.", "excerpt": "This looks great, i've been wanting a dev sandbox that doesn't run the risk of costing a lot if I forget to turn it off. I had a few issues 1. manpath: can't set the locale; make sure $LC_* and $LANG are correct suspect this is due to it inheriting locale from my local machine? easy to get around with some updates to .bashrc 2. the $SHELL environment in my sprite is `/opt/homebrew/bin/fish` I use fish on my local (ma", "context": "", "use_case": "dev sandbox", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745181104, "item_id": 46573819, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46573819", "by": "mcintyre1994", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks like a really interesting solution, I can just store the data on a sprite with SQLite or whatever.", "excerpt": "Okay this is super interesting! As I was reading this I was a bit confused by the issues they mention, but at work I use Claude SSHed to a persistent dev server and I\u2019d be annoyed if I didn\u2019t have eg my git repos there all the time or any part of that workflow was ephemeral. I\u2019m not really aware of what everyone else is doing with sandboxes etc. But the bit at the end with the MDM server made it click for me. I\u2019ve st", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent personal software", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745106448, "item_id": 46569153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569153", "by": "psanford", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Playing around with this for a small amount of time, it is very neat but also there are a bunch of things that are unclear / undocumented", "excerpt": "Playing around with this for a small amount of time, it is very neat but also there are a bunch of things that are unclear / undocumented (I assume the documentation is coming so I'm not faulting them for it not being there yet). Some things that are unclear: - How should I auth to github? sprite console doesn't use ssh (afaik) so I guess not agent forwarding? - What on machine api's are available? Can I use the fly ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}]}