Scalix Computers

Persistent Linux machines with real ssh, an agent API, and disk that survives restarts

Overview

A Computer is a persistent Linux machine. It keeps its disk, its IP address and its identity for its whole life. Stop it and the disk stays. Start it again and your files, packages and tools are exactly where you left them.

Computers sit beside Sandboxes in the platform. A Sandbox is the right tool for isolated, disposable execution. A Computer is the right tool when the work needs to still be there tomorrow: a development box you ssh into, a workspace an agent owns across a multi-day task, or a small always-on service.

Every Computer runs as its own hardware-isolated microVM. You get root, full outbound network access, and no inbound exposure. The only way in is the authenticated tunnel described in Access.

Create a Computer

curl -X POST https://api.scalix.world/v1/computers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCALIX_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "dev-box",
    "image": "ubuntu24",
    "resources": { "vcpus": 2, "memory_mb": 2048, "disk_gb": 20 },
    "ssh_keys": ["ssh-ed25519 AAAA... you@example.com"]
  }'

The response includes the Computer id, its status and its ipAddress. Names are lowercase DNS labels. The image is Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Disk size is fixed at create time. Pick the size the workload needs; growable disks are on the roadmap but not shipped.

Lifecycle

# list your Computers
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCALIX_API_KEY" https://api.scalix.world/v1/computers
 
# stop (disk survives, billing drops to parked disk only)
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCALIX_API_KEY" \
  https://api.scalix.world/v1/computers/{id}/stop
 
# start again (same IP, same disk, fresh boot)
curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCALIX_API_KEY" \
  https://api.scalix.world/v1/computers/{id}/start
 
# delete permanently
curl -X DELETE -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCALIX_API_KEY" \
  https://api.scalix.world/v1/computers/{id}

Stopping is a clean shutdown and starting is a fresh boot that takes a few seconds. See Lifecycle and pricing for exactly what survives a restart and what each state costs.

Drive it from an agent

Everything a Computer does is available as plain API calls, so an agent can own one end to end: create it, run commands, read and write files, park it, and wake it later. The same operations are exposed as scalix_computer_* tools in the MCP catalog.

# run a command (argv style: a program and its arguments, no shell parsing)
curl -X POST https://api.scalix.world/v1/computers/{id}/exec \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCALIX_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "command": "python3", "args": ["--version"] }'

The full endpoint list is in the Computers API reference.