Vercel Sandboxes now automatically save and restore filesystem state between sessions. Persistence is on by default, meaning no snapshots to manage or state to track manually.

Each sandbox has a durable, customizable name that acts as a unique reference in your project. You can create, retrieve, or resume a sandbox by name. Vercel spins sessions up and down automatically, without interrupting your workflow.

Link to headingCreate a persistent sandbox

When you call Sandbox.create(), persistence is enabled by default:

import { Sandbox } from "@vercel/sandbox";
// Filesystem is snapshotted automatically
const sandbox = await Sandbox.create({ name: "my-sandbox" }); 
await sandbox.runCommand("npm", ["install"]);
await sandbox.stop();

Each automatic snapshot consumes snapshot storage, which is billed separately from compute. For ephemeral workloads, opt out of persistence to minimize storage costs:

import { Sandbox } from "@vercel/sandbox";
const sandbox = await Sandbox.create({ persistent: false });
// Or update an existing sandbox.
await sandbox.update({ persistent: false });

To opt out of persistence with the CLI, pass --non-persistent to sandbox create. Non-persistent sandboxes discard their filesystem when the session ends.

Link to headingResume a persistent sandbox

Resuming is automatic. Any call on a stopped sandbox, like runCommand() or writeFiles(), starts a new session from the most recent snapshot.

import { Sandbox } from "@vercel/sandbox";
const resumedSandbox = await Sandbox.get({ name: "my-sandbox" });
// Automatically resumes the sandbox.
await resumedSandbox.runCommand("npm", ["test"]);

Link to headingOther improvements

• Sandbox.fork(): Create a new sandbox from an existing one

• Sandbox.getOrCreate(): Idempotent retrieve-or-create for long-lived sandboxes

• Sandbox.delete(): Permanently delete a sandbox

• Richer sandbox.stop(): Returns snapshot metadata plus active-CPU and network-transfer totals

• Lifecycle hooks: onCreate and onResume hooks for create, get, and getOrCreate

• Tags: Assign custom properties to sandboxes for multi-tenant tracking

Link to headingGet started

Upgrade to the latest version to create persistent sandboxes by default:

• pnpm install @vercel/sandbox@latest # SDK

• pnpm install -g sandbox@latest # CLI

Learn more about persistent sandboxes in the documentation.