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Boxes.dev: ditch localhost; run Claude Code and Codex in the cloud

Details

External ID
48399358
Source
HN
Company
—
Product
Boxes.dev: ditch localhost; run Claude Code and Codex in the cloud
Website domain
boxes.dev
Launched
June 4, 2026
Cohort
—
Upvotes
105
Upvotes percentile
0.9180327868852459
Tags
—
Fetched at
Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
Updated at
Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.

Description

Hi HN, we’re Nick and Drew, and we’re building boxes.dev – the first cloud-only agentic dev environment (ADE) that gives every Codex and Claude Code agent its own cloud computer.We’re two engineers who previously built Gem (co-founder/CTO and first hire), and we spent the last year coding almost exclusively using Codex and Claude Code. It’s been a huge change to how we code, and it’s been exhilarating seeing the models keep getting better – but we eventually realized that developing on localhost was holding us back:- Git worktrees are clunky to set up and use for parallelizing work - It’s 2026, but somehow everyone is still walking around with laptops cracked open or SSHing into mac minis in their garage so their agents don’t stop working. - Mobile is treated like an afterthought even though coding is just texting now We started hitting resource constraints when multiple parallel agents test their own work by running the full app locally. - We tried different products, but couldn’t find any that solved all of our pain points – so we pivoted and decided to just build the ADE we wanted for ourselves.Boxes.dev is a desktop and mobile app that lets you run Claude Code, Codex (using your subscription!), and the full dev environment for whatever you’re building, all on remote compute. It’s similar to Conductor or the Codex desktop app, except everything is in the cloud.We use coding agents to scan your local dev setup and port it to the cloud. Then every Claude Code/Codex thread starts from a snapshot of the full setup, with its own filesystem and compute. No more git worktrees, no more cracked-open laptops, and your coding agents can actually test their work end-to-end because they can run your full app in isolation.We’ve mirrored the Claude Code and Codex UX to feel natural to power users, and also have a fully-featured mobile app (no handoffs or remote control), plus scheduled automations and a Slack integration.We’re obviously biased, but we’ve been building boxes.dev with boxes.dev for months and it’s honestly been a gamechanger. It’s hard to go back once you realize how much localhost has been limiting you; based on early feedback from beta testers, we’re increasingly sure that cloud is the future of agentic coding.We’d love for you to experience it yourselves! Would appreciate any feedback – and happy to answer any questions on this thread.

Enrichment

Theme
Claude integrations and coding agents
Vertical
Horizontal
Function
Dev tools
Audience
Developer
AI stance
AI feature
Project type
Commercial product
Normalized one-liner
cloud-based code execution for ai models
Manually corrected
False

Could you build this?

No Boxes.dev is a cloud agentic development environment requiring advanced virtualization, microVM orchestration (e.g., Firecracker), multi-tenant isolation, and real-time remote execution protocols.

What it would actually take: The architecture demands a custom cluster scheduler running lightweight microVMs (Firecracker or gVisor) with sub-second provisioning, copy-on-write root filesystems, and secure network sandboxing. It requires low-latency PTY streaming via WebSockets, file sync daemons, and programmatic hookups to agent CLI tools like Claude Code and Codex.

Discussion

20 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: sandboxd project (self-hosted VPS sandboxes), Canopy (TUI version), Docker SBX (MicroVM agent sandbox runtime), engine.build (task implementation with review loop), ThreadedStack (similar project in development)

Concerns raised: Privacy/ownership concerns with cloud-based computing, Reluctance to cede computing needs to cloud providers, Cost management for idle infrastructure, Developer skepticism about remote-only workflow, Job displacement concerns from AI tooling

Feature requests: Local development as an option alongside cloud, Better git worktrees management across agent sessions, Mobile app for checking in and reviewing remotely, Support for Docker SBX runtime integration, Transparent cloud workflow execution in awman

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one — 514 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #49 of 515 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 217 days after the earliest competitor.

Other launches for this product

Same idea, different domain

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