OnlyBoxes Overview

OnlyBoxes is a self-hosted code execution sandbox platform for individuals and small teams.

A typical control-plane and execution-plane split architecture, ready for horizontal scaling.

What it provides

For regular users, OnlyBoxes provides:

• A simple yet fully capable MCP endpoint
  • echo: connectivity test
  • pythonExec: stateless Python code execution
  • terminalExec: stateful terminal code execution
  • readImage: read multimodal image data
  • computerUse: command execution on the user's own host machine via worker-sys
  • exportFile: export session files to the configured object store
• Session isolation between users
• Web UI dashboard

For admin users, OnlyBoxes additionally provides:

• User management
• Worker management

Core capabilities

Main components

• console: the control node, responsible for auth, worker registration, management APIs, and MCP exposure.
• worker-*: execution nodes, responsible for task execution.
  • worker-docker: a worker implementation backed by Docker containers.
  • worker-boxlite: a worker implementation backed by boxlite.
  • worker-bridge-e2b: a worker implementation backed by remote E2B sandboxes.
  • worker-sys: a worker implementation backed by host OS processes for direct device control scenarios. Each account can register multiple instances and select an exact target for Computer Use.

Typical usage

1. Start the control node.
2. Sign in to the dashboard and create a worker record.
3. Start a worker using the generated worker id and secret.
4. Use the dashboard, REST API, or MCP endpoint to execute tasks.

Next steps

• Read the Architecture page for the system model.
• Linux/Mac one-click install experience — see Install.
• If you prefer the manual setup flow, go to Quick Start.