pre-1.0 developer preview

Fork a running environment.

kosa8 runs each agent in its own microVM. Snapshot one mid-task and fork it N ways — processes, memory and filesystem intact — then let every branch explore a different solution in parallel.

FORK
$ kosa8 sandbox create build
 sandbox build up (576ms)

$ kosa8 sandbox run build node:22 npm install
   … 1,412 packages installed

# branch that exact state four ways
$ kosa8 fork build -n 4
 build-fork1  build-fork2
 build-fork3  build-fork4
  4 live VMs, node_modules already warm

Snapshot and fork, not just isolate

Most agent sandboxes are disposable: you get isolation, and when the session ends the state is gone. kosa8 keeps it. A snapshot captures memory, running processes and a same-instant disk clone, so a restore resumes exactly where it paused — a running server keeps serving.

That makes branching the primitive. Drive an agent to the interesting point once, then fork and try four approaches from identical state instead of replaying setup four times.

886ms
snapshot a 2 GB sandbox
676ms
warm restore, processes intact
576ms
boot a fresh 2 GB sandbox
61MB
idle host memory

Measured on one Apple-Silicon machine with make bench; method and full results in the repo. Two other targets are currently missed — see status.

The boundary is infrastructure, not instructions

A kit states which directory is visible, which hosts are reachable and which secrets exist. The sandbox enforces all three regardless of what the agent inside decides to do.

microVM per session

Each sandbox is its own kernel and its own container engine. A compromised agent gets a VM, not your laptop.

Egress allowlists

--egress deny, or name the only hosts a sandbox may reach. Enforced in the guest, not by asking nicely.

Hash-chained audit

Every state-changing action recorded and HMAC-authenticated, exportable as JSONL or CEF for a SIEM.

Signed org policy

ed25519-signed profiles pin allowed registries and egress defaults. A developer cannot weaken an installed policy.

Sandboxed MCP

Third-party MCP servers run inside their own sandbox and are aggregated behind one endpoint, tools namespaced.

Docker-compatible

42 of 48 docker commands work against the same socket, so existing tooling keeps working.

Where kosa8 fits

Docker Sandboxes covers microVM isolation for agents, and covers it on more platforms than we do. The thing it does not do is keep the state.

CapabilityDocker Sandboxeskosa8
microVM isolation per agent sessionyesyes
Network / filesystem policyyesyes
Centralized governance & audityessigned policy + local audit
Snapshot live process stateyes
Fork a running sandbox N waysyes
Migrate a snapshot between machinesephemeral, no data at restpush/pull via R2
macOS, Windows and Linux hostsyesmacOS / Apple Silicon
Signed, notarized installersyesnot yet
Registry, hardened images, supply chainyesout of scope

From docker.com and docs.docker.com, July 2026. We publish no comparative performance numbers because we have not measured Docker.

Priced by parallel branches, not seats

A developer running one agent and a developer running forty parallel branches get very different value from the same seat. So the meter is concurrent forks — it grows with how much of the solution space you explore at once, and never needs a seat renegotiation.

Solo

$29 /mo
One dev, one agent at a time.
  • 4 concurrent forks
  • 40 fork-hours
  • 25 GB snapshots

Pro

$89 /mo
One dev driving an agent fleet.
  • 16 concurrent forks
  • 200 fork-hours
  • 100 GB snapshots

Team

$69 /seat /mo
Teams with a security owner. Min 3 seats.
  • 48 pooled forks
  • 600 pooled fork-hours
  • 250 GB snapshots
  • Signed policy, SSO, SIEM export

Scale

$199 /seat /mo
Large fleets and dedicated capacity. Min 5 seats.
  • 160 pooled forks
  • 2,000 pooled fork-hours
  • 1 TB snapshots
  • Private worker pools

Beyond your plan: $0.90 per fork-hour · $12 per extra concurrent slot / mo · $0.05 per GB / mo · $0 egress, because R2 charges us none. Need a burst? +32 concurrent forks for 24 hours, $49.

Every plan is a monthly subscription with a 14-day full-feature trial. There is no free tier. Running a regulated or air-gapped estate — SCIM, your own R2 bucket, audit-key escrow, on-prem workers? Talk to us.

kosa8 is in developer preview and billing is not open yet — the plans above go live with the first signed release. Until then everything is buildable from source.

Honest status

kosa8 is a pre-1.0 developer preview. What that means concretely:

Not ready for production
  • macOS on Apple Silicon only. The daemon needs Virtualization.framework. Linux and Windows builds are remote clients.
  • Installers are not signed or notarized yet, so build from source for now.
  • Container cold start is 862 ms against a 250 ms target — measured, and not met.
  • Bind-mount throughput is ~20% of native against a 70% target.
  • Snapshot, restore, fork, egress policy, audit and the Docker-compatible API all work and are covered by an end-to-end test against real VMs.

Install

Build from source while signing is being set up — a downloaded daemon would be blocked by Gatekeeper.

BUILD
$ git clone https://github.com/AzmxAI/kosa8
$ cd kosa8 && make build install-guest
$ ./bin/kosa8 daemon start
$ ./bin/kosa8 run alpine echo hi
hi

Requires macOS on Apple Silicon and Go. Full setup, the sandbox guide and the remote-worker docs are in the repository.