Self-hostable sandbox SDK inspired by Cloudflare Sandbox SDK. works on any device (Mac, Linux, bare metal). super easy to use (both by human engineers and agents). you get full control over capacity/token spent per sandbox, you can default-deny egress but still allow access to LLM providers, and API keys never directly enter each sandbox (it creates per-sandbox tokens instead that die when the sandbox stops). npm i -g hotcell
hello humans of PH :) i wanna share this open source project (apache 2.0) that i've been working on for the past 2 ish months or so. it's called hotcell and it lets you create/pause/manage sandboxes on any device (your laptop, linux vm, bare metal).
i've tested it against various benchmarks that i found on computesdk (https://www.computesdk.com/bench...) as well as the one shared by dax (cofounder of open code) on twitter recently (link to his original thread and my reply https://x.com/sinasanm/status/20...)
and generally the full benchmark results are here: https://github.com/sinameraji/ho......
i spent a lot of time on making sure both the devrloper experience and agent experience are smooth on it and im actively working to make it perform better against benchmarks.
also api keys are never directly injected into the sandbox. instead it creates a per-sandbox token that becomes useless when the sandbox dies.
as for isolation method, it can work with docker, apple VZ (vm grade isolation on mac) or firecracker for linux .
primary use cases i imagine:
* if you build agentic desktop apps that have filesystem access locally, hotcell makes it super easy to start a sandbox and bring whatever file needed to it, do the work in a new branch, create a PR and close the sandbox
* if u just use claude code etc. and wanna spin up 5-6 diff environments without using worktree or cloning your project dirs, u can write a 1 line command like this to instantly have 5 sandboxes! hotcell create -n 5 --name feat --branch auto --opencode --repo https://github.com/you/app
my inspiration was cloudflare sandbox sdk (but i noticed my friends and i couldn't use cloudflare in on-prem environment so i thought i'd build a local / open source one that works w any hardwarw).
thank you and hope you like it.
What's the isolation model - containers, lightweight VMs, or something custom? Curious how heavy it feels on a laptop running a coding agent alongside the sandbox.
the per-sandbox scoped tokens that die with the sandbox is honestly such a clean move, keeps api keys out of the blast radius without making the workflow annoying
Sandboxing agents locally makes a lot of sense to me. How much does the isolation cost you in practice on a Mac? Curious whether it's noticeable or whether it disappears into the noise.
About npm i -g hotcell on Product Hunt
“Local sandboxes for AI agents on your Mac, Linux, bare metal”
npm i -g hotcell launched on Product Hunt on August 5th, 2026 and earned 115 upvotes and 5 comments, placing #13 on the daily leaderboard. Self-hostable sandbox SDK inspired by Cloudflare Sandbox SDK. works on any device (Mac, Linux, bare metal). super easy to use (both by human engineers and agents). you get full control over capacity/token spent per sandbox, you can default-deny egress but still allow access to LLM providers, and API keys never directly enter each sandbox (it creates per-sandbox tokens instead that die when the sandbox stops). npm i -g hotcell
npm i -g hotcell was featured in Open Source (68.7k followers), Developer Tools (517.2k followers), Artificial Intelligence (475.5k followers) and GitHub (41.4k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 231.8k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
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npm i -g hotcell was hunted by Sina Meraji. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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Sina Meraji