Quicksand Alpine

This package bundles a pre-built Alpine Linux 3.23 VM image for the quicksand agent harness. No downloads required after installation.

Alpine is lightweight and boots quickly, making it ideal for AI agents that need fast sandbox startup.

Why Alpine?

Alpine Linux is a lightweight distribution that offers:

• Smaller image size: ~75MB vs ~300MB for Ubuntu
• Faster boot time: Less to load means quicker startup
• Minimal attack surface: Only essential packages included
• musl libc: Smaller, simpler C library

Use Alpine when you need fast, lightweight sandboxes. Use Ubuntu when you need broader package compatibility or glibc-dependent software.

Installation

pip install 'quick-sandbox[qemu,alpine]'

Or install separately:

pip install quick-sandbox
quicksand install alpine

Usage

Simple (recommended)

import asyncio
from quicksand import AlpineSandbox

async def main():
    async with AlpineSandbox() as sb:
        result = await sb.execute("cat /etc/os-release")
        print(result.stdout)

asyncio.run(main())

With custom config

from quicksand import AlpineSandbox

async with AlpineSandbox(memory="512M", cpus=2) as sb:
    result = await sb.execute("uname -a")

Or using Sandbox directly:

from quicksand import Sandbox

async with Sandbox(image="alpine", memory="512M", cpus=2) as sb:
    result = await sb.execute("uname -a")

What's Included

The Alpine 3.23 image includes:

• BusyBox shell
• curl, ca-certificates
• OpenRC and dhcpcd
• sudo and ext4 disk-resize tools
• The quicksand agent (pre-installed)

Installing Additional Packages

Alpine uses apk for package management:

async with AlpineSandbox() as sb:
    # Install packages
    await sb.execute("apk add --no-cache git nodejs npm")

    # Use them
    result = await sb.execute("node --version")
    print(result.stdout)

Package Size

The wheel is ~75MB, much smaller than Ubuntu (~300MB) because Alpine is a minimal distribution. This makes it faster to download and install.

License

MIT