Self-hosted sandbox for Claude Managed Agents

Before you start#

• A self-hosted environment and its key. In the Claude Console, click Create environment, choose Self-hosted under Hosting, then open it and click Generate environment key. Note its ID (env_...) too.

• An exe.dev API key that can make and reach session VMs, and nothing else. On your computer:

  ssh exe.dev ssh-key generate-api-key --label=claude-dispatcher \
    --tag=claude-session --cmds=new,ls,ssh --exp=1y --json | jq -r .token
  

  It sees only VMs tagged claude-session, and the VMs it creates get that tag. ssh exe.dev ssh-key remove claude-dispatcher revokes it.

Run the dispatcher#

Deploy sets it up on a new VM. To do it yourself:

ssh exe.dev new --name=my-claude-dispatcher
ssh my-claude-dispatcher.exe.xyz

sudo curl -fsSL -o /usr/local/bin/claude-dispatcher \
  https://exe-staging.dev/deploy/claude-managed-agents/dispatcher.py
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/claude-dispatcher
sudo install -m 600 /dev/null /etc/claude-dispatcher.env
sudo tee /etc/claude-dispatcher.env > /dev/null <<'EOF'
ANTHROPIC_ENVIRONMENT_ID=env_...
ANTHROPIC_ENVIRONMENT_KEY=sk-ant-oat01-...
EXE_TOKEN=exe1....
EOF

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/claude-dispatcher.service > /dev/null <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Claude Managed Agents dispatcher (one exe.dev VM per session)
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=exedev
EnvironmentFile=/etc/claude-dispatcher.env
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/uv run --script /usr/local/bin/claude-dispatcher
Restart=always
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now claude-dispatcher
sleep 10; journalctl -u claude-dispatcher -n 5 --no-pager

Or run it on your computer#

With uv, fill in the same three values and leave it running in a terminal:

export ANTHROPIC_ENVIRONMENT_ID=env_...
export ANTHROPIC_ENVIRONMENT_KEY=sk-ant-oat01-...
export EXE_TOKEN=exe1....
uv run https://exe-staging.dev/deploy/claude-managed-agents/dispatcher.py

Sessions wait in the queue while it isn't running. Run one dispatcher per environment.

Give it a task#

Start sessions as you always do, with the self-hosted environment's ID. For example, with an agent (the quickstart makes one), the ant CLI, and ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set to your Claude API key, on your computer:

ant beta:sessions create --agent agent_... --environment-id env_... \
  --transform id -r --initial-event '
    type: user.message
    content: [{type: text, text: "Write the output of hostname to hello.txt."}]'

Within seconds the dispatcher logs sesn_...: worker started on <vm>. Once the session goes idle, ssh <vm>.exe.xyz cat /workspace/hello.txt prints that VM's name.

Clean up#

On your computer, ssh exe.dev ls lists each session's VM with the session's ID as its comment. Delete one with ssh exe.dev rm <vm>; a session that comes back after its VM is gone gets a new, empty one. To delete every VM tagged claude-session (its first two lines alone list them):

ssh exe.dev ls --json |
  jq -r '.vms[] | select(.tags // [] | index("claude-session")) | .vm_name' |
  xargs -r ssh exe.dev rm

Troubleshooting#

The dispatcher's log is journalctl -u claude-dispatcher on its VM:

• Error code: 401 or 404: the environment key or ID is wrong.
• invalid token: the exe.dev API key is wrong or has expired; make a new one.
• during new: ... and giving up: exe.dev refused a VM, often because the plan's VM limit is reached. Delete old session VMs.

A session's own log is on its VM: ssh <vm>.exe.xyz journalctl -t claude-worker.