Launch HN: Runtime (YC P26) – Sandboxed coding agents for everyone on a team
Runtime, launched on HN, introduces a platform for sandboxed coding agents, empowering entire teams—including non-engineers—to leverage AI without the usual chaos. It solves the critical problem of safely deploying and managing AI agents across an organization by providing secure environments, guardrails, and seamless integration with existing tools. This enables rapid, controlled automation, from building an on-call inspector to automating financial reconciliations, making powerful AI accessible and manageable for businesses.
The Lowdown
Runtime, a new platform by Gus and Carlos, addresses the significant challenges organizations face when trying to scale the use of AI coding agents beyond individual engineers. Recognizing the pitfalls of unmanageable PRs, complex local setups, and security risks like secrets leaks, Runtime provides the infrastructure to deploy sandboxed coding agents across entire teams, ensuring safety, context, and control.
- Secure Agent Deployment: Runtime allows engineering teams to define system instructions, skills, and integrations once, creating a controlled environment for agents.
- Instant Environments: The platform snapshots full running environments, including multi-service Docker Compose setups, Kafka, Redis, and seeded databases, enabling agent sessions to boot in milliseconds.
- Orchestration & Guardrails: It orchestrates across various sandbox providers (E2B, Daytona, EC2, self-hosted K8s) and implements robust infrastructure-level guardrails, including command allow/deny lists, network egress controls, and role-based access control (RBAC).
- Secrets Management: Secrets are securely injected via a managed proxy, preventing direct agent access.
- Universal Compatibility: Runtime supports a wide array of existing agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini, Devin) and can be triggered from various platforms like web apps, CLIs, Slack, Linear, and GitHub.
- Real-World Applications: Customers are already using Runtime to build tools like an on-call inspector that wires PagerDuty, Sentry, and repos to auto-diagnose issues and create PRs, and finance agents for rapid reconciliations.
- Open Source Core & Hosted Option: The core of Runtime is open source, and a hosted version with a free tier is available, featuring transparent pricing based on platform fees and compute.
By abstracting away the complexities and risks associated with AI agent infrastructure, Runtime aims to democratize the use of coding agents, enabling every team member—from product managers to finance and support—to safely automate and innovate within their specific contexts.