Deno Sandbox

Deno Sandbox brings instant Linux microVMs to Deno Deploy. Each sandbox boots in under a second, is API driven from the @deno/sandbox SDK, and is torn down as soon as you are done. The result is on-demand compute that feels like opening a terminal, yet ships with production-grade isolation and observability.

What is a Deno Sandbox?

• Individual Linux microVMs orchestrated by Deno Deploy
• Designed for running untrusted code
• Instantly available; boot times measured in milliseconds
• Ephemeral by default but able to persist beyond the current connection lifetime
• Able to access durable storage via volumes
• Fully API driven: create, run commands, and tear down from code

Ideal use cases

Deno Sandbox specializes in workloads where code needs to be generated, evaluated, or safely executed on behalf of an untrusted user. They are ideal for:

• AI agents and copilots that need to run code as they reason
• Secure plugin or extension systems
• Vibe-coding and collaborative IDE experiences
• Ephemeral CI runners and smoke tests
• Customer supplied or user generated code paths
• Instant dev servers and preview environments

This is compute built not just for developers, but for software that builds software.

Run real workloads

Once the Deno Sandbox exists, you get a full Linux environment with files, processes, package managers, and background services:

import { Sandbox } from "@deno/sandbox";
await using sandbox = await Sandbox.create();
await sandbox.sh`ls -lh /`;

from deno_sandbox import DenoDeploy

def main():
  sdk = DenoDeploy()

  with sdk.sandbox.create() as sandbox:
    process = sandbox.spawn("ls", args=["-lh"])
    process.wait()

from deno_sandbox import AsyncDenoDeploy

async def main():
  sdk = AsyncDenoDeploy()

  async with sdk.sandbox.create() as sandbox:
    process = await sandbox.spawn("ls", args=["-lh"])
    await process.wait()

Security policies

Provision a sandbox so that it can only talk to approved hosts:

await Sandbox.create({
  allowNet: ["google.com"],
});

sdk = AsyncDenoDeploy()

async with sdk.sandboxes.create(allowNet=["google.com"]) as sandbox:
  print(f"Sandbox {sandbox.id} is ready.")

sdk = DenoDeploy()

with sdk.sandboxes.create(allowNet=["google.com"]) as sandbox:
  print(f"Sandbox {sandbox.id} is ready.")

Secrets never enter the sandbox environment. The real value is substituted only when the sandbox makes outbound requests to approved hosts.

await Sandbox.create({
  allowNet: ["api.openai.com"],
  secrets: {
    OPENAI_API_KEY: {
      hosts: ["api.openai.com"],
      value: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY,
    },
  },
});

sdk = AsyncDenoDeploy()

async with sdk.sandboxes.create(
  allowNet=["api.openai.com"],
  secrets={
    "OPENAI_API_KEY": {
      "hosts": ["api.openai.com"],
      "value": os.environ.get("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
    }
  },
) as sandbox:
  print(f"Sandbox {sandbox.id} is ready.")

sdk = DenoDeploy()

with sdk.sandboxes.create(
  allowNet=["api.openai.com"],
  secrets={
    "OPENAI_API_KEY": {
      "hosts": ["api.openai.com"],
      "value": os.environ.get("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
    }
  },
) as sandbox:
  print(f"Sandbox {sandbox.id} is ready.")

Built for instant, safe compute

Developers and AI systems now expect compute that is instant, safe, and globally accessible. Deno Sandbox delivers:

• Instant spin-up with no warm pool to manage
• Dedicated isolation with strict network egress policies
• Full observability alongside Deno Deploy logs and traces
• Region selection, memory sizing, and lifetime controls per sandbox
• Seamless hand-off to Deno Deploy apps when code is production ready

Together, Deno Deploy and Deno Sandbox form a single workflow: code is created, proved safe in a sandbox, and deployed globally without new infrastructure or orchestration layers.

Runtime support

The Deno Sandbox SDK is tested and supported on:

• Deno: Latest stable version
• Node.js: Version 24+
• Python: >=3.10

You can use Deno Sandbox from any environment that can make outbound HTTPS requests to the Deno Deploy API. The JavaScript SDK is available as @deno/sandbox on both jsr and npm (the JSR package is optimized for Deno usage). The Python SDK is available as deno-sandbox on PyPI. For direct API access, see the REST API documentation.

:::note await using support

The await using syntax requires Node.js 24+. If your project uses earlier Node.js versions, use try/finally blocks instead:

import { Sandbox } from "@deno/sandbox";

const sandbox = await Sandbox.create();
try {
  // ... use sandbox ...
} finally {
  await sandbox.close();
}

:::

Limits

Deno Sandbox has the following limits:

• Memory: 768 MB to 4096 MB (1.2GB default) configurable per sandbox
• CPU: 2 vCPU
• Lifetime: Configurable per sandbox and bound to a session, up to 30 minutes
• Disk: 10 GB of ephemeral storage
• Concurrency: 5 concurrent sandboxes per organization (This is the default concurrency limit during the pre-release phase of Deno Sandbox. Contact [email protected] to request a higher limit.)

Exceeding these limits may result in throttling or termination of your sandbox.

Regions

Regions currently supported are:

• ams - Amsterdam, Netherlands
• ord - Chicago, USA

You can specify the region where the sandbox will be created when creating a new sandbox:

import { Sandbox } from "@deno/sandbox";

await using sandbox = await Sandbox.create({ region: "ams" });

from deno_sandbox import DenoDeploy

def main():
  sdk = DenoDeploy()

  with sdk.sandboxes.create(region="ams") as sandbox:
    print(f"Sandbox {sandbox.id} is ready.")

from deno_sandbox import AsyncDenoDeploy

async def main():
  sdk = AsyncDenoDeploy()

  async with sdk.sandboxes.create(region="ams") as sandbox:
    print(f"Sandbox {sandbox.id} is ready.")

If not specified, the sandbox will be created in the default region.

Learn more

Ready to try it? Follow the Getting started guide to create your first sandbox, obtain an access token, and run code on the Deploy edge.