🦀 📦 Crabbox

Warm a box, sync the diff, run the suite.

Crabbox is an open-source remote testbox runner for maintainers and AI agents. Lease fast managed cloud capacity, or point at an existing SSH host, sync your dirty checkout, run a command remotely, stream output, and release. Local edit-save-run loop, cloud-grade compute.

crabbox run -- pnpm test

Behind that single command: a Go CLI on your laptop, a Cloudflare Worker broker that owns provider credentials and lease state, and a managed runner on Hetzner Cloud or AWS EC2. Crabbox can also wrap Blacksmith Testboxes when you choose provider: blacksmith-testbox, use Daytona or Islo sandboxes for direct-provider workflows, or use provider: ssh for existing macOS and Windows targets.

Install

brew install openclaw/tap/crabbox
crabbox --version

No Homebrew? Grab a GoReleaser archive for macOS, Linux, or Windows.

Prerequisites on the laptop: git, ssh, ssh-keygen, rsync, curl.

Quick start

# log in once per machine (stores a broker token in user config)
crabbox login

# verify local prerequisites and broker reachability
crabbox doctor

# one-shot: lease, sync, run, release
crabbox run -- pnpm test

# or warm a box once, then reuse it
crabbox warmup                                       # prints cbx_... + a slug
crabbox run --id blue-lobster -- pnpm test:changed
crabbox ssh --id blue-lobster
crabbox stop blue-lobster

Every lease has a stable cbx_... ID and a friendly crustacean slug (blue-lobster, swift-hermit, …). Either works wherever an --id is accepted.

How it works

your laptop                Cloudflare Worker            cloud provider
-------------              ------------------           --------------
crabbox CLI    -- HTTPS --> Fleet Durable Object  -->   Hetzner / AWS EC2
   |                         lease + cost state              |
   |                                                         |
   +------------ SSH + rsync to leased runner ` while it is active,