Era
Open-source local sandbox for AI agents
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Just watched this video by ThePrimeagen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efwDZw7l2Nk) about attackers jailbreaking Claude to run cyber attacks. The core issue: AI agents need isolation.We built ERA to fix this – local microVM-based sandboxing for AI-generated code with hardware-level security. Think containers, but safer. Such attacks wouldn't touch your host if running in ERA.GitHub: https://github.com/BinSquare/ERAQuick start: https://github.com/BinSquare/ERA/tree/main/era-agent/tutoria...Would love your thoughts and feedback!
HN · launched Nov 27, 2025 · 62 upvotes (top 14%) · 0 views
Niche: ai agent execution sandboxes · 137 launches, 6 in the last 7 days ▼ -25% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- AI-native
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 137 launches in ai agent execution sandboxes →
Could you build this?
No Era is a secure local sandbox using microVMs (such as Firecracker or Cloud-Hypervisor) for isolating untrusted code, requiring deep systems programming and virtualization expertise.
What it would actually take: A real system requires a Rust or Go daemon managing Linux KVM or macOS Hypervisor.framework primitives to spin up sub-second microVMs, configure jailer sandboxing (cgroups, seccomp filters), and manage virtio network/block devices. The core challenge is achieving robust hardware-level isolation, memory sharing, and zero-trust guest-host RPC channels without latency overhead, demanding specialized kernel and hypervisor engineering skills.
Discussion
19 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Firecracker microVMs, gVisor syscall-level sandboxing, Docker containers, krunvm
Concerns raised: Unclear value proposition over existing container/VM solutions, Cloudflare integration confusing for local-first use case, krunvm has breaking issues requiring upstream fixes, Target audience unclear - may not suit all users
Feature requests: Node.js/npm SDK for local installation without system-wide setup, Component diagram showing architecture and deployment model, IDE integration for running code sandboxed locally, Improved resource monitoring and cleanup, Better documentation clarifying when to use vs containers/VMs
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 1478 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #425 of 1479 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 21 days after the earliest competitor.
- kosa8 · ph · 2026-10-24 · 23 upvotes · similarity 0.60
- Sanbox, batteries included sandboxes for AI agents · hn · 2026-07-12 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.55
- AI Sandboxes by Buddy · ph · 2026-10-15 · 87 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- CreateOS Sandbox · ph · 2026-07-21 · 153 upvotes · similarity 0.51
- Running AI agents across environments needs a proper solution · hn · 2026-03-24 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- Mistle · hn · 2026-05-13 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- Runtime · ph · 2026-10-14 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- We built a <60ms, open-source alternative to E2B using RustVMM and KVM · hn · 2026-04-22 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.49
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