{ } Code Sandboxes

Code Sandboxes code_sandboxes is a Python package for safe, isolated environments where an AI system can write, run, and test code without affecting the real world or the user's device.

This package provides a unified API for code execution with features like:

• Code Execution: Execute Python code with streaming output and rich results
• Filesystem Operations: Read, write, list, upload, and download files
• Command Execution: Run shell commands with streaming support
• Context Management: Maintain state across multiple executions
• Snapshots: Save and restore sandbox state (Datalayer runtime)
• GPU Support: Access GPU compute for ML workloads (Datalayer runtime)

Sandbox Variants

Seven variants are available. Canonical variant names are jupyter, docker, eval, monty, colab, modal, and datalayer. The older local-* names are no longer supported.

See Backend Setup Guides below for per-variant installation, credentials, and usage.

Module Layout

Sandbox implementations are exposed as top-level modules:

• code_sandboxes.jupyter_sandbox
• code_sandboxes.docker_sandbox
• code_sandboxes.eval_sandbox
• code_sandboxes.monty_sandbox
• code_sandboxes.colab_sandbox
• code_sandboxes.modal_sandbox
• code_sandboxes.datalayer_sandbox

Example direct imports:

from code_sandboxes.jupyter_sandbox import JupyterSandbox
from code_sandboxes.docker_sandbox import DockerSandbox
from code_sandboxes.eval_sandbox import EvalSandbox
from code_sandboxes.monty_sandbox import MontySandbox
from code_sandboxes.colab_sandbox import ColabSandbox
from code_sandboxes.modal_sandbox import ModalSandbox
from code_sandboxes.datalayer_sandbox import DatalayerSandbox

Installation

# Basic installation
pip install code-sandboxes

# With Datalayer runtime support
pip install code-sandboxes[datalayer]

# With Docker support
pip install code-sandboxes[docker]

# With Google Colab support
pip install code-sandboxes[colab]

# With Monty (secure in-process interpreter) support
pip install code-sandboxes[monty]

# With Modal cloud sandbox support
pip install code-sandboxes[modal]

# All features
pip install code-sandboxes[all]

Docker Variant Setup

The docker variant runs a Jupyter Server inside a Docker container and uses jupyter-kernel-client to execute code.

Build the Docker image used by DockerSandbox:

docker build -t code-sandboxes-jupyter:latest -f docker/Dockerfile .

Quick Start

Simple Code Execution

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

# Create a sandbox with timeout
with Sandbox.create(variant="eval", timeout=60) as sandbox:
    # Execute code
    result = sandbox.run_code("x = 1 + 1")
    result = sandbox.run_code("print(x)")  # prints 2

    # Multi-statement blocks return the last expression
    result = sandbox.run_code("""
x = 10
x * 2
""")
    print(result.text)  # "20"

    # Access results
    print(result.stdout)  # "2"

Cloud Execution with GPU

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

# Create a cloud sandbox with GPU
with Sandbox.create(
    variant="datalayer",
    gpu="T4",
    environment="python-gpu-env",
    timeout=300,
) as sandbox:
    sandbox.run_code("import torch")
    result = sandbox.run_code("print(torch.cuda.is_available())")

Filesystem Operations

with Sandbox.create() as sandbox:
    # Write files
    sandbox.files.write("/data/test.txt", "Hello World")

    # Read files
    content = sandbox.files.read("/data/test.txt")

    # List directory
    for f in sandbox.files.list("/data"):
        print(f.name, f.size)

    # Upload/download
    sandbox.files.upload("local_file.txt", "/remote/file.txt")
    sandbox.files.download("/remote/file.txt", "downloaded.txt")

Command Execution

with Sandbox.create() as sandbox:
    # Run a command and wait for completion
    result = sandbox.commands.run("ls -la")
    print(result.stdout)

    # Execute with streaming output
    process = sandbox.commands.exec("python", "-c", "print('hello')")
    for line in process.stdout:
        print(line, end="")

    # Install system packages
    sandbox.commands.install_system_packages(["curl", "wget"])

Snapshots (Datalayer Runtime)

with Sandbox.create(variant="datalayer") as sandbox:
    # Set up environment
    sandbox.install_packages(["pandas", "numpy"])
    sandbox.run_code("import pandas as pd; df = pd.DataFrame({'a': [1,2,3]})")

    # Create snapshot
    snapshot = sandbox.create_snapshot("my-setup")
    print(f"Snapshot created: {snapshot.id}")

# Later: restore from snapshot
with Sandbox.create(variant="datalayer", snapshot_name="my-setup") as sandbox:
    # State is restored
    result = sandbox.run_code("print(df)")

Streaming Output

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox, OutputMessage

def handle_stdout(msg: OutputMessage):
    print(f"[stdout] {msg.line}")

def handle_stderr(msg: OutputMessage):
    print(f"[stderr] {msg.line}")

with Sandbox.create() as sandbox:
    result = sandbox.run_code(
        "for i in range(5): print(f'Step {i}')",
        on_stdout=handle_stdout,
        on_stderr=handle_stderr,
    )

CLI REPL

sandbox includes a Typer-based CLI that launches an interactive REPL against a selected sandbox variant and always terminates created resources on exit. The code-sandboxes command remains available as an alias.

sandbox repl --variant jupyter
sandbox repl --variant monty
sandbox repl --variant modal
sandbox repl --variant colab

If --variant is omitted, the CLI prompts for one.

Variant notes:

• jupyter: starts a managed local Jupyter server on a random port.
• monty: starts a Monty REPL-backed sandbox.
• modal: starts a Modal sandbox container.
• colab: prompts for runtime URL, kernel ID, and proxy token.

Exit with :exit, :quit, or Ctrl+D.

Backend Setup Guides

Each backend has its own installation, credential, and parameter requirements. Select a backend by passing variant=... to Sandbox.create(). The sections below explain, for every variant, exactly how to obtain the credentials and the parameters you need to pass.

1. Jupyter Server

Runs code out-of-process against a local or remote Jupyter Server via the Jupyter kernel protocol (jupyter-kernel-client), providing process isolation and persistent kernel state.

Install (included by default):

pip install code-sandboxes

Parameters:

How to obtain the token:

• If you start the server yourself, you choose the token:

  jupyter server --port 8888 --IdentityProvider.token MY_TOKEN
  

• For an already-running server, print the URL + token with:

  jupyter server list
  # http://localhost:8888/?token=abcd1234...  :: /home/you/notebooks
  

  The token=... query value is your token. You can also pass the full URL as server_url (the ?token=... is parsed automatically).
• If you omit server_url entirely, JupyterSandbox starts and manages its own local Jupyter Server and generates the token for you — no configuration needed.

Usage:

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

# Connect to an existing server:
with Sandbox.create(
        variant="jupyter",
        server_url="http://localhost:8888",
        token="MY_TOKEN",
) as sandbox:
        sandbox.run_code("x = 40")
        print(sandbox.run_code("x + 2").text)  # 42

# Or let the sandbox manage a local server automatically:
with Sandbox.create(variant="jupyter") as sandbox:
        print(sandbox.run_code("1 + 1").text)  # 2

2. Docker

Runs a Jupyter Server inside a Docker container for local, isolated execution and connects to it with jupyter-kernel-client.

Install:

pip install code-sandboxes[docker]

Prerequisites — verify Docker is installed and running:

docker version   # must succeed (daemon reachable)

Build the image used by DockerSandbox (default tag code-sandboxes-jupyter:latest):

docker build -t code-sandboxes-jupyter:latest -f docker/Dockerfile .

Parameters (no external credentials — the kernel token is generated automatically):

Usage:

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

with Sandbox.create(
        variant="docker",
        image="code-sandboxes-jupyter:latest",
) as sandbox:
        result = sandbox.run_code("import sys; print(sys.version)")
        print(result.stdout)

3. Eval

Executes code in the host process with Python's exec(). No isolation — intended for development and testing only.

Install (included by default):

pip install code-sandboxes

Credentials / parameters: none. There is nothing to configure.

Usage:

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

with Sandbox.create(variant="eval") as sandbox:
    sandbox.run_code("x = 1 + 1")
    print(sandbox.run_code("print(x)").stdout)  # 2

⚠️ eval shares memory with your process and provides no sandboxing. Never run untrusted code with it — use monty, docker, modal, or datalayer instead.

4. Monty

Runs code in Monty, a minimal, secure Python interpreter written in Rust (pydantic-monty). Monty executes a restricted subset of Python in-process with microsecond startup and no access to the host filesystem, environment, or network unless explicitly granted. Ideal for short, LLM-generated snippets. Session state persists across run_code calls.

Install:

pip install code-sandboxes[monty]

Credentials / parameters: none required (fully local, in-process). Optional constructor parameters on MontySandbox:

Usage:

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

with Sandbox.create(variant="monty") as sandbox:
    sandbox.run_code("x = 21")
    print(sandbox.run_code("x * 2").text)  # 42

# Expose host callables and enable type checking:
from code_sandboxes.monty_sandbox import MontySandbox

sandbox = MontySandbox(
    type_check=True,
    external_functions={"now": lambda: "2026-01-01"},
)
sandbox.start()
sandbox.run_code("print(now())")

Monty supports only a subset of Python — third-party libraries and rich display outputs are not available.

5. Google Colab

Runs code against a Google Colab runtime. Colab exposes a Jupyter-compatible kernel behind an authenticating proxy, so this variant connects using jupyter-kernel-client's ColabKernelClient.

Install:

pip install code-sandboxes[colab]

Parameters:

How to obtain these values — they are the pieces of the WebSocket URL that Colab's own frontend uses to reach your assigned runtime:

wss://<host>/api/kernels/<kernel_id>/channels?session_id=<...>&colab-runtime-proxy-token=<proxy_token>&colab-client-agent=web

Read them from your browser's developer tools:

1. Open your notebook on colab.research.google.com and connect to a runtime (Runtime → Connect, or run any cell).
2. Open DevTools (F12) → Network tab, select the WS filter (or type kernels), then run a cell to trigger kernel traffic.
3. Click the .../api/kernels/<kernel_id>/channels?... request and read off:
   • server_url — scheme + host before /api/kernels (change wss:// to https://). Colab assigns a per-session host such as https://8080-m-s-kkb-...-d.us-east1-0.prod.colab.dev; there is usually no /tun/m/... path segment.
   • kernel_id — the UUID segment right after /api/kernels/.
   • proxy_token — the colab-runtime-proxy-token query parameter (same value as the X-Colab-Runtime-Proxy-Token request header). Ignore the session_id and colab-client-agent parameters.

The programmatic "runtime assignment API" is the internal endpoint Colab's frontend calls (authenticated with your Google session); it is not an officially published public API, so the DevTools method above is the practical approach. The values are tied to your Colab session and are short-lived — refresh them after the runtime is reassigned or reconnected.

Usage:

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

with Sandbox.create(
    variant="colab",
    server_url="https://8080-m-s-kkb-...-d.us-east1-0.prod.colab.dev",
    kernel_id="c9bba548-3995-4f26-8e1a-7b8fbb10c578",
    proxy_token="eyJhbGci....",
) as sandbox:
    sandbox.run_code("x = 40")
    print(sandbox.run_code("x + 2").text)  # 42

Browser bridge (no manual DevTools): instead of copying the values by hand, set use_browser_bridge=True to obtain them from an authenticated Colab browser session. This reuses jupyter-kernel-client's browser bridge: a short-lived localhost WebSocket server is opened with a one-time token, a Colab page is launched, and the authenticated tab posts the runtime server_url / kernel_id / proxy_token back to the process. Google credentials never leave the browser.

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

with Sandbox.create(variant="colab", use_browser_bridge=True) as sandbox:
    print(sandbox.run_code("print(1 + 1)").text)

Install the bridge extra with pip install 'jupyter-kernel-client[bridge]'. The browser side must run a cooperating page/extension/userscript that reads the token and port from the launch URL and sends the payload (see the jupyter-kernel-client README for the contract).

6. Modal

Runs code in a Modal cloud sandbox, providing fully isolated, on-demand containers with configurable images and secrets.

Install:

pip install code-sandboxes[modal]

How to obtain Modal credentials:

1. Create a free account at modal.com.

2. Authenticate the CLI — this opens a browser and writes credentials to ~/.modal.toml:

   modal token new
   

   This is enough for local use: the Modal SDK reads credentials from ~/.modal.toml automatically.

3. Alternatively, create a token in the Modal dashboard (Settings → API Tokens) and export it as environment variables:

   Environment variable	Description
   MODAL_TOKEN_ID	Modal token id (starts with ak-)
   MODAL_TOKEN_SECRET	Modal token secret (starts with as-)

Do you need both MODAL_TOKEN_ID and MODAL_TOKEN_SECRET?

• For environment-based auth (CI/CD, containers, hosted runners): yes, you need both values because Modal authenticates with a token pair (public id + secret).
• For local development with modal token new: not necessarily. The SDK can authenticate directly from ~/.modal.toml.

If you need to export environment variables from your local Modal config, you can read them from ~/.modal.toml:

python - <<'PY'
import pathlib
import tomllib

cfg = tomllib.loads(pathlib.Path("~/.modal.toml").expanduser().read_text())
profile = cfg.get("default", cfg)
token_id = profile.get("token_id")
token_secret = profile.get("token_secret")
if token_id and token_secret:
        print(f"export MODAL_TOKEN_ID={token_id}")
        print(f"export MODAL_TOKEN_SECRET={token_secret}")
else:
        raise SystemExit("Could not find token_id/token_secret in ~/.modal.toml")
PY

Parameters: app_name, image (a prebuilt modal.Image), pip_packages (extra packages for the default image), python_executable.

Usage:

from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

with Sandbox.create(
    variant="modal",
    pip_packages=["numpy"],
) as sandbox:
    result = sandbox.run_code("import numpy as np; print(np.arange(3).sum())")
    print(result.stdout)  # "3"

Each run_code call runs in a fresh python -c process, so state does not persist across calls. Use a single multi-statement snippet when you need shared state.

7. Datalayer

Cloud-based execution with full isolation, GPU support, snapshots, and persistence via the Datalayer runtime, powered by the agent_runtimes package.

Install:

pip install code-sandboxes[datalayer]

This extra installs agent_runtimes, which provides the runtime client used by the datalayer sandbox variant.

How to obtain Datalayer credentials:

1. Create an account at datalayer.ai.

2. Generate an API token from your account settings (IAM → Tokens / API Keys).

3. Export it (or pass it as the token parameter):

   Environment variable	Description
   DATALAYER_API_KEY	API key for Datalayer runtime authentication
   DATALAYER_RUN_URL	Custom Datalayer service URL (optional, for self-hosted)

Parameters: token (defaults to DATALAYER_API_KEY), run_url, snapshot_name, plus creation options like environment, gpu, cpu, memory.

Usage:

import os
from code_sandboxes import Sandbox

os.environ["DATALAYER_API_KEY"] = "your-datalayer-token"

with Sandbox.create(
    variant="datalayer",
    gpu="A100",
    environment="python-gpu-env",
    timeout=300,
) as sandbox:
    sandbox.run_code("import torch")
    print(sandbox.run_code("print(torch.cuda.is_available())").stdout)

API Reference

Sandbox.create()

Factory method to create sandboxes:

sandbox = Sandbox.create(
    variant="datalayer",  # Sandbox type
    timeout=60,                   # Execution timeout (seconds)
    environment="python-cpu-env",  # Runtime environment
    gpu="T4",                     # GPU type (T4, A100, H100, etc.)
    cpu=2.0,                      # CPU cores
    memory=4096,                  # Memory in MB
    env={"MY_VAR": "value"},      # Environment variables
    network_policy="none",        # Network access policy
    allowed_hosts=["localhost"],   # Allowlist when policy is allowlist
    tags={"project": "demo"},     # Metadata tags
)

# Network policies:
# - inherit: default behavior for the sandbox variant
# - none: block all outbound connections
# - allowlist: allow only hosts in allowed_hosts
# - all: allow all outbound connections

Execution Result

result = sandbox.run_code("print('hello')")

result.success    # bool: Whether execution succeeded
result.stdout     # str: Standard output
result.stderr     # str: Standard error
result.text       # str: Main result text
result.results    # list[Result]: Rich results (HTML, images, etc.)
result.code_error # CodeError: Error details if failed
result.execution_ok     # bool: Infrastructure execution status
result.execution_error  # str | None: Infrastructure error details
result.exit_code        # int | None: Exit code if code called sys.exit()

# Error handling
if not result.execution_ok:
    print(f"Sandbox failed: {result.execution_error}")
elif result.exit_code not in (None, 0):
    print(f"Process exited with code: {result.exit_code}")
elif result.code_error:
    print(f"Python error: {result.code_error.name}: {result.code_error.value}")
else:
    print(result.text)

Core Methods

Configuration

Environment Variables

• DATALAYER_API_KEY: API key for Datalayer runtime authentication

SandboxConfig

from code_sandboxes import SandboxConfig

config = SandboxConfig(
    timeout=30.0,              # Default execution timeout
    environment="python-cpu-env",
    memory_limit=4 * 1024**3,  # 4GB
    cpu_limit=2.0,
    gpu="T4",
    working_dir="/workspace",
    env_vars={"DEBUG": "1"},
    max_lifetime=3600,         # 1 hour
)

sandbox = Sandbox.create(config=config)

Testing

Run the local test suite:

pytest tests/

Required environment variables for tests:

• None for the default local suite (eval, factory, model, and local Jupyter tests).

Optional environment variables for cloud-integration smoke tests:

• DATALAYER_API_KEY: required only when running Datalayer runtime smoke tests.
• DATALAYER_RUN_URL: optional custom Datalayer runtime URL.
• DATALAYER_ENVIRONMENT: optional environment override (for example ai-agents-env).
• MODAL_TOKEN_ID / MODAL_TOKEN_SECRET: required only if you add or run Modal integration tests.

CI Workflows

This repository uses a reusable GitHub Actions workflow at .github/workflows/reusable-python.yml.

The following workflows call it:

• .github/workflows/build.yml
• .github/workflows/py-tests.yml
• .github/workflows/py-code-style.yml
• .github/workflows/py-typing.yml

Reusable workflow inputs:

• python-version: Python version to run.
• install-system-deps: Install Linux dependencies and unlock keyring.
• install-extras: Extras from pyproject.toml (for example test,typing).
• extra-packages: Additional packages installed with uv pip install.
• run-tests: Enable test execution.
• test-command: Command used for tests.
• run-mypy: Enable mypy.
• mypy-target: Package or module passed to mypy.
• run-pre-commit: Enable pre-commit checks.

License

Copyright (c) 2025-2026 Datalayer, Inc.

BSD 3-Clause License