E2B is a leading agent sandbox in the 2026 AI agent engineering landscape (12.8k★).
When to use this skill
- Cloud sandboxes for AI-generated code — Firecracker microVM isolation
- JS/TS and Python SDKs: Sandbox.create(), commands.run(), filesystem API
- Code Interpreter SDK (e2b-code-interpreter) with stateful run_code
- Custom sandbox templates from Dockerfiles
- Pause/resume persistence; desktop sandbox variant for GUI agents
- Self-hostable infra (open source) or hosted cloud
- Ecosystem overlap: agent-guardrails covers policy; e2b covers the isolation infrastructure those policies assume; smolagents skill references E2B executor
Installation
pip install e2b # code interpreter: pip install e2b-code-interpreter / npm i @e2b/code-interpreter
Usage
import Sandbox from 'e2b'
const sandbox = await Sandbox.create()
const result = await sandbox.commands.run('echo "Hello from E2B!"')
console.log(result.stdout)
Instructions
Step 1: Initialize the environment
Verify you have Python + TypeScript installed and set up properly. Use the correct package manager (pip, npm, pnpm, uv) as specified in the installation section.
Step 2: Establish the agent flow
Architecture pattern: Sandbox-as-a-service: agents get ephemeral isolated VMs with ~150ms start; SDK is framework-agnostic (used by smolagents executor, many frameworks)
Step 3: Implement tool integrations and policies
Integrate necessary tools, environment keys, and safety gates according to your architectural needs. Position in the ecosystem: Default OSS sandbox SDK for agent code-exec; alternatives: daytona (broader workspace features), modal (batch compute), local Docker (weaker isolation)
Examples
Example 1: Minimal Agent Run
import Sandbox from 'e2b'
const sandbox = await Sandbox.create()
const result = await sandbox.commands.run('echo "Hello from E2B!"')
console.log(result.stdout)
Best practices
- Follow the primary installation commands for E2B to ensure dependencies are resolved correctly.
- Configure model providers and API keys securely before starting the runtime.
- Use appropriate sandboxing or permission isolation if executing AI-generated code.