A machine for every task

Boxd proposes replacing a single shared local development setup with a flexible fleet of isolated Ubuntu virtual machines, allowing each task, branch, or coding agent to work on its own copy of an application without database, port, or file conflicts. Teams can configure one base machine with dependencies, seeded data, and running services, then fork it in milliseconds with its memory, processes, and disk state preserved, providing each task with an immediately usable environment and public HTTPS URL for review or collaboration. Named snapshots can serve as reusable team images for onboarding and standardized environments, while shared secrets and integrations are injected across machines and checkpoints allow individual machines to be restored independently. Machines automatically hibernate when inactive to limit costs, although long-running jobs without inbound network traffic require idle suspension to be disabled. The approach requires reliable network access and remains unsuitable for macOS- or iOS-specific builds, but it can be adopted gradually by starting with one project before expanding across a team.

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