Sandboxes CLI reference

Render Sandboxes is in early access.

APIs, defaults, and limits might change during the early access period. Before using sandboxes in production workloads, discuss your use case with your Render contact.

Request access

During Render Sandboxes early access, all sandbox-related Render CLI commands are under the render ea namespace.

When Render Sandboxes reaches general availability, these commands will be available directly under the render namespace.

Global options

Option	Description
`--confirm`	Skip all confirmation prompts
`--output`, `-o`	Set output format to interactive, json, yaml, or text. Auto-switches to text on non-TTY

Sandbox lifecycle

`ea sandboxes`

Manage sandboxes for your Render workspace.

Sandboxes are ephemeral compute environments for running code, agents, and experiments.

Every sandbox belongs to a sandbox group, which scopes it to a region. Manage groups with "render ea sandbox-groups".

Snapshot a sandbox with "render ea sandboxes snapshots create" and restore new sandboxes from it with "render ea sandboxes create --snapshot-id".

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes

Available commands:

Command	Description
`copy`	Copy files to or from a sandbox
`create`	Create a new sandbox
`exec`	Execute a command in a sandbox
`list`	List sandboxes
`snapshots`	Manage sandbox snapshots
`stop`	Terminate a sandbox

Examples:

bash

render ea sandboxes create
render ea sandboxes create --plan=standard --region=oregon
render ea sandboxes create --snapshot-id snp-abc123
render ea sandboxes copy ./main.py sbx-abc123:/app/main.py
render ea sandboxes exec sbx-abc123 -- echo hello
render ea sandboxes snapshots create sbx-abc123
render ea sandboxes snapshots list --group sbg-abc123
render ea sandboxes stop sbx-abc123 --confirm

Options:

Global options only

`ea sandboxes create`

Create a new sandbox in the current workspace.

The command prints the new sandbox while it is still creating. Wait for its status to become running before executing commands in it.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes create

Examples:

bash

render ea sandboxes create
render ea sandboxes create --plan=standard --region=oregon
render ea sandboxes create --timeout=3600
render ea sandboxes create --network-policy=deny-all
render ea sandboxes create --env-var FOO=bar --env-var BAZ=qux
render ea sandboxes create --env-file .env.production --env-var LOG_LEVEL=debug
render ea sandboxes create --snapshot-id snp-abc123

Options:

Global options, plus:

Option	Description
`--env-file`	Path to an env file to load. Repeat to load multiple files (later files override earlier ones). Every listed file must exist.
`--env-var`	Set environment variables in `KEY=VALUE` format (can be specified multiple times). Inline values override values loaded from `--env-file`.
`--network-policy`	Outbound network policy: allow-all, deny-all. Defaults to `allow-all`.
`--plan`	Compute plan: starter, standard, pro During early access, this flag does not select a different sandbox configuration.
`--region`	Region to run the sandbox in. During early access, sandboxes run only in Oregon.
`--snapshot-id`	Start from this snapshot instead of the base image. The snapshot must be available and in the same sandbox group. A runtime snapshot requires `--plan` to match its plan.
`--timeout`	Maximum sandbox lifetime in seconds. 0 uses the default and maximum of 86400 (24 hours). The sandbox terminates when this timeout elapses.

`ea sandboxes list`

List sandboxes in your workspace.

By default, terminated sandboxes are excluded. Use --all to include them, or --status to filter by specific statuses.

--status is repeatable and accepts creating, running, suspended, resuming, errored, or terminated. If you pass both --all and --status, the status filter takes precedence.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes list

Examples:

bash

render ea sandboxes list
render ea sandboxes list --all
render ea sandboxes list --status=running
render ea sandboxes list --status=running --status=creating
render ea sandboxes list -o json

Options:

Global options, plus:

Option	Description
`--all`	Include terminated sandboxes
`--status`	Filter by status (repeatable: creating, running, suspended, resuming, errored, terminated)

`ea sandbox-groups`

Manage sandbox groups for your Render workspace.

Sandbox groups scope a workspace's sandboxes to a region and (optionally) an environment. Early access guarantees at most one default group per workspace; Beta will add multi-group support.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandbox-groups

Available commands:

Command	Description
`list`	List sandbox groups in the active workspace

Examples:

bash

render ea sandbox-groups list
render ea sandbox-groups list -o json

Options:

Global options only

`ea sandbox-groups list`

List sandbox groups in your workspace.

Early access guarantees at most one default group per workspace, so this command typically prints a single row.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandbox-groups list

Examples:

bash

# List sandbox groups in the active workspace
render ea sandbox-groups list

# Output as JSON
render ea sandbox-groups list -o json

Options:

Global options only

`ea sandboxes stop` `<sandboxId>`

Terminate a running sandbox. This action is irreversible.

Without --confirm, this command previews what would be terminated and makes no changes. Pass --confirm to actually terminate the sandbox.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes stop <sandboxId>

Examples:

bash

# Preview termination (no changes made)
render ea sandboxes stop sbx-abc123

# Terminate the sandbox
render ea sandboxes stop sbx-abc123 --confirm

# JSON output
render ea sandboxes stop sbx-abc123 --confirm --output json

Options:

Global options only

Runtime execution

`ea sandboxes exec` `<sandboxId> -- <command>`

Run a single command in a running sandbox. Streams stdout and stderr as the command runs, then exits with the remote command's exit code.

Pass the command after a "--" separator so its own flags aren't parsed by the CLI.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes exec <sandboxId> -- <command>

Examples:

bash

render ea sandboxes exec sbx-abc123 -- echo hello
render ea sandboxes exec sbx-abc123 -- python script.py

Options:

Global options only

`ea sandboxes copy` `<src> <dst>`

Copy a file or directory between the local filesystem and a running sandbox.

Prefix the remote side with the sandbox ID and a colon, like scp. A relative sandbox path resolves inside the sandbox's home directory; an absolute path addresses the sandbox filesystem root. Directories are transferred as archives: uploading a local directory recreates it at the sandbox path, and downloading a sandbox directory recreates it under the local path. "cp" works as an alias.

Unlike cp, a directory destination is not nested into: copying ./src to sbx-abc123:/tmp/src puts src's contents at /tmp/src, not at /tmp/src/src. A single file copied to an existing local directory does land inside it.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes copy <src> <dst>

Aliases: cp

Examples:

bash

render ea sandboxes copy ./main.py sbx-abc123:main.py
render ea sandboxes copy sbx-abc123:output.json ./output.json
render ea sandboxes copy ./src sbx-abc123:/tmp/src
render ea sandboxes cp sbx-abc123:. ./sandbox-home
render ea sandboxes copy sbx-abc123:output.json ./downloads/ --output json

Options:

Global options only

Snapshot management

The CLI provides snapshot commands under render ea sandboxes snapshots.

`ea sandboxes snapshots`

Manage snapshots of sandboxes in your Render workspace.

A snapshot captures a running sandbox so a new sandbox can be restored from it with "render ea sandboxes create --snapshot-id". A filesystem snapshot captures the writable filesystem and restores onto any plan. A runtime snapshot also captures memory and CPU state and restores only onto the plan of the source sandbox.

Snapshots belong to the sandbox group of their source sandbox. Getting, listing, or deleting a snapshot uses the active workspace's default group unless --group is provided.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes snapshots

Available commands:

Command	Description
`create`	Snapshot a running sandbox
`delete`	Delete a sandbox snapshot
`get`	Get a sandbox snapshot
`list`	List sandbox snapshots

Examples:

bash

# Snapshot a running sandbox
render ea sandboxes snapshots create sbx-abc123

# List the snapshots in the default sandbox group
render ea sandboxes snapshots list

# List the snapshots in a specific sandbox group
render ea sandboxes snapshots list --group sbg-abc123

# Get one snapshot
render ea sandboxes snapshots get snp-abc123

# Delete a snapshot
render ea sandboxes snapshots delete snp-abc123 --confirm

# Delete a snapshot in a specific group
render ea sandboxes snapshots delete snp-abc123 --group sbg-abc123 --confirm

Options:

Global options only

`ea sandboxes snapshots create` `<sandboxId>`

Capture a snapshot of a running sandbox.

The command returns as soon as the API accepts the request, while the snapshot status is still "creating". Poll with "render ea sandboxes snapshots get" until the status is "available" before starting a sandbox from it.

The sandbox keeps running after the capture.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes snapshots create <sandboxId>

Examples:

bash

# Snapshot the filesystem (default)
render ea sandboxes snapshots create sbx-abc123

# Also capture memory and CPU state
render ea sandboxes snapshots create sbx-abc123 --kind runtime

# JSON output
render ea sandboxes snapshots create sbx-abc123 --output json

Options:

Global options, plus:

Option	Description
`--kind`	Snapshot kind: filesystem (default), runtime

`ea sandboxes snapshots get` `<snapshotId>`

Get one sandbox snapshot by ID.

Uses the active workspace's default sandbox group unless --group is provided. An expired snapshot is reported as not found.

Displays the snapshot's status and details.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes snapshots get <snapshotId>

Examples:

bash

# Get a snapshot
render ea sandboxes snapshots get snp-abc123

# Get a snapshot in a specific group
render ea sandboxes snapshots get snp-abc123 --group sbg-abc123

# JSON output
render ea sandboxes snapshots get snp-abc123 --output json

Options:

Global options, plus:

Option	Description
`--group`	Sandbox group the snapshot belongs to (defaults to the active workspace's default group)

`ea sandboxes snapshots list`

List the snapshots in a sandbox group, newest first.

Uses the active workspace's default sandbox group unless --group is provided. Deleted and expired snapshots are not listed.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes snapshots list

Examples:

bash

# List every snapshot in the default sandbox group
render ea sandboxes snapshots list

# List snapshots in a specific group
render ea sandboxes snapshots list --group sbg-abc123

# Only snapshots that are ready to start a sandbox from
render ea sandboxes snapshots list --status available

# JSON output
render ea sandboxes snapshots list --output json

Options:

Global options, plus:

Option	Description
`--group`	Sandbox group to list (defaults to the active workspace's default group)
`--status`	Filter by status (repeatable: creating, available, failed)

`ea sandboxes snapshots delete` `<snapshotId>`

Delete one sandbox snapshot by ID. This action is irreversible.

Uses the active workspace's default sandbox group unless --group is provided. Without --confirm, this command previews what would be deleted and makes no changes. A snapshot that is still being created cannot be deleted yet. An expired snapshot is reported as not found.

Usage:

bash

render ea sandboxes snapshots delete <snapshotId>

Examples:

bash

# Preview deletion (no changes made)
render ea sandboxes snapshots delete snp-abc123

# Delete the snapshot
render ea sandboxes snapshots delete snp-abc123 --confirm

# Delete a snapshot in a specific group
render ea sandboxes snapshots delete snp-abc123 --group sbg-abc123 --confirm

# JSON output
render ea sandboxes snapshots delete snp-abc123 --confirm --output json

Options:

Global options, plus:

Option	Description
`--group`	Sandbox group the snapshot belongs to (defaults to the active workspace's default group)