Use the CLI with Agent Sandbox Flash Edition

Prerequisites

• You have an Alibaba Cloud account and the permissions required to perform Function Compute operations.

• You have completed the following configurations: Configure RAM User Permissions, Create a Team, and Create an API Key.

• You have confirmed that the target region supports Agent Sandbox Flash Edition and that your local network can access the Agent Sandbox Flash Edition service in that region.

• You have installed a version of the E2B CLI that meets the version requirements. For details, see Usage constraints.

1. Install the CLI

On macOS, use Homebrew:

brew install e2b

Alternatively, use npm:

npm i -g @e2b/cli@2.20.0

After installation, check the version:

e2b --version

2. Configure environment variables

Configure the API key, API URL, and domain. For information about how to create and manage an API key, see Create an API Key.

export E2B_API_KEY="<your-api-key>"
export E2B_API_URL="https://api.<region>.sandbox.aliyuncs.com"
export E2B_DOMAIN="<region>.sandbox.aliyuncs.com"

In these commands, <region> is the region where the Agent Sandbox Flash Edition service is deployed. For supported regions and endpoint rules, see Usage constraints.

E2B_ACCESS_TOKEN is a deprecated legacy E2B authentication variable. New versions of the E2B CLI should use E2B_API_KEY. If an older CLI version still requires E2B_ACCESS_TOKEN, upgrade the CLI and try again.

List sandboxes first to verify that the configuration takes effect:

e2b sandbox list

3. View templates

e2b template list

The output lists the templates available to your current account. The following example shows only the output format. Template IDs, specifications, creation times, and statuses vary by account, region, and template configuration:

Access  Template ID    Template Name         vCPUs  RAM MiB  Created at    Disk size MiB  names                buildStatus
Public  <template-id>  code-interpreter-v1       2     2048  <created-at>          15360  code-interpreter-v1  ready

4. Create and connect to a sandbox

e2b sandbox create code-interpreter-v1

After you enter the sandbox terminal, run:

python3 -c 'print("hello from sandbox")'
exit

5. Connect to an existing sandbox

If a sandbox is already running, reconnect to its interactive terminal by sandbox ID:

e2b sandbox connect <sandbox-id>

Exiting the terminal only closes the local terminal session. It does not automatically terminate the sandbox.

6. Run commands in a sandbox

Alternatively, run a command directly in an existing sandbox without entering the interactive terminal:

e2b sandbox exec <sandbox-id> ls

The command output is returned to your local terminal.

7. View sandbox metrics

View the CPU and memory metrics of a running sandbox:

e2b sandbox metrics <sandbox-id>

Metrics are currently returned at 1-minute granularity, which is suitable for debugging and observing resource usage trends.

8. View and terminate sandboxes

View the list of sandboxes:

e2b sandbox list

Terminate a sandbox that you no longer use:

e2b sandbox kill <sandbox-id>

After the task is complete, explicitly terminate the sandbox to avoid continued resource consumption.

Next steps

• To create and manage sandboxes in your application by using the SDK, see Use Agent Sandbox Flash Edition with the SDK.