Installation¶

devsandbox runs on Linux and macOS. Pick your platform.

Prerequisites¶

devsandbox requires mise for tool version management. Install it first.

Linux¶

curl https://mise.jdx.dev/install.sh | sh

Activate mise in your shell (setup guide):

# bash
echo 'eval "$(~/.local/bin/mise activate bash)"' >> ~/.bashrc

# zsh
echo 'eval "$(~/.local/bin/mise activate zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

# fish
echo '~/.local/bin/mise activate fish | source' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish

Your kernel must support unprivileged user namespaces. Verify with:

unshare --user true
# Should succeed silently. If it fails, see Limitations.

No system packages are required - bwrap and pasta binaries ship embedded in the devsandbox binary.

macOS¶

brew install mise

A Docker runtime is also required:

• OrbStack - recommended for Apple Silicon (fastest startup, lowest resource usage)
• Docker Desktop - most widely tested
• Colima - free and open-source

Install devsandbox¶

The recommended path is via mise:

mise use -g github:zekker6/devsandbox

After install, verify:

devsandbox doctor

Direct binary download (Linux)¶

curl -L https://github.com/zekker6/devsandbox/releases/latest/download/devsandbox_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv devsandbox /usr/local/bin/

Optional system packages (Linux fallback)¶

If embedded binary extraction fails, install system equivalents:

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S bubblewrap passt

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install bubblewrap passt

# Fedora
sudo dnf install bubblewrap passt

To prefer system binaries over embedded, set use_embedded = false in Configuration.

Build from source¶

Requires Go 1.22+ and Task. With mise installed, mise install handles both:

mise install
task build

Next step¶

Continue to Quick start.