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Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents

freestyle.sh

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Re: Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents

#111

Post by alasano »

jFriedensreich wrote: post #67

Non open source and non local SAAS sandboxes are offensive to even try to launch. No one needs this and the only customers will be vibe coders who just don't know any better. There are teams building actual sandboxes like smolmachines, podman, colima and mre. At least be honest and put the virtualisation tech you are using as well as that its closed source SAAS on the landing page to safe people time.

Your comment could have been "I prefer these open source alternatives:" but you chose to be a hater.

There's nothing wrong with offering services that people find useful.

Re: Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents

#114

Post by benswerd »

atlasagentsuite wrote: post #112

[flagged]

Freestyle has really built with this in mind. We propose a primary architecture built around declarative configuration of the vm with a git repo as external source of truth.

If the VM crashes/you have another idea/you want to try something else it should be reconstructable from outside of the VM.

However, I think this is potentially unrealistic. While it is the ideal architecture, I hear more and more every day people who just want to have the VMs run for months at a time.

Re: Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents

#115

Post by benswerd »

sn9 wrote: post #113
atlasagentsuite wrote: post #112

[flagged]

What are some examples of this?

CI Builders/QA Agents can do this very well. User session starts, bring VM up with content + dependencies, when session is done throw it away. Keeps it clean, debuggable, fast and cheap.

Re: Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents

#116

Post by benswerd »

tomComb wrote: post #77
benswerd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will just work on us. We do auto suspend depending on your configured timeout. We'll pause your VM and when you come back the processes will be in the exact same state as when you left.

But your pricing page suggests that that is not available without a subscription: in the on-demand pricing section "persistent Snapshots" and "Persistent VM's" have an 'x'.

We do not allow long term persistence for the free tier.

This is purely a defense mechanism, I don't want to guarantee storing the data of an entire VM forever for non paying users. We have persistence options for them like Sticky persistence but it doesn't come with the reliability of long term persistence storage.

Re: Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents

#117

Post by jeremyjh »

benswerd wrote: post #47
jeremyjh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would recommend not giving an agent the full run of any computing environment. Do handle fine grained internet access controls and credential injection like OpenShell does?

I used to believe this, but I think the next generation of agents is much more autonomous and just needs a computer. The work of a developer is open ended, so we use a computer for it. We don't try to box developers into small granular screwdrivers for each small thing. Thats whats coming to all agents, they might want to run some analysis with python, want to generate a website/document in typescript, and might want…

The difference is that I am not always legally liable for what a rogue developer does with their computer - if I had no knowledge of what they were up to and had clear policies they violated then I'm probably fine. But I'm definitely always liable for anything an agent I created does with the computer I gave it.

And while they are getting better I see them doing some spectacularly stupid shit sometimes that just about no person would ever do. If you tell an agent to do something and it can't do what it thinks you want in the most straightforward way, there is really no way to put a limit on what it might try to do to fulfill its understanding of its assignment.

Re: Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents

#119

Post by benswerd »

siscia wrote: post #118

It is not clear to me how much CPU I get. "Unlimited" as in 8vCPU and then I am billed for it on consumption?

Billed for wall time. whichever plan you are on you get in credits, so hobby plan gets $50 of credits and beyond that billed on per CPU wall time.

Re: Launch HN: Freestyle – Sandboxes for Coding Agents

#120

Post by kstenerud »

knowsuchagency wrote: post #11
benswerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fly.io sprites is the most similar to us of the bunch. They do hardware virtualization as well, have comparable start times and are full Linux. What we call snapshots they call checkpoints. The big pros of Sprites over us is their advanced networking stack and the Fly.io ecosystem. The big cons are that Sprites are incredibly bare bones — they don't have any templating utilities. I've also heard that Sprites sometime…

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I'm predominantly a self-hoster, but I think your product makes a lot of sense for a wide variety of users and businesses. I'm excited to try out freestyle!

I built yoloAI, which is a single go binary that runs anywhere on mac or linux, sandboxing your agents in disposable containers or VMs, nested or not.

Your agent never has access to your secrets or even your workdir (only a copy, and only what you specify), and you pull the changes back with a diff/apply workflow, reviewing any changes before they land. You also control network access.

Free, open-source, no account needed.

https://github.com/kstenerud/yoloai

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