Inside the VMs Powering Mobile Agents: Claude Code and Instinct
The VMs Powering Mobile Agents (Instinct, Claude Code)
A deep dive into the virtual machines that run mobile agents. Claude Code uses Firecracker microVMs with a custom Rust init, while Instinct rents E2B sandboxes running full Ubuntu. The key difference: Claude Code seals its operator inside the guest, whereas Instinct keeps the brain out, using the sandbox purely for execution and storing memory as a git repo in S3.
The durable thing is a git repo in S3. The machine is throwaway.
- hypendev
It's always, firecracker all the way down!
Enjoyed the breakdown, honestly most of the things weren't really surprising.
What was surprising to me was that instinct was just "agent slapped on top of markdown files in git", especially after seeing people talk about it so much. I expected at least a database or a graph or something "smart", but alas, its just three markdowns in a trenchcoat.
- RohanAdwankar
I took a look inside the VMs that a couple of the agent platforms are using.
TLDR is they use firecracker with memory in git.
I'm a big fan of the memory in git part it would be cool to see how the git history looks after I use it for a longer period of time.
This is my first blog, I'm trying to document things publically as I learn, next I'll look more closely at the providers they are using under the hood (eg. e2b) so feel free to give advice on what to look for!
- quietraster
great breakdown. did you notice meaningful differences in how the platforms handle filesystem persistence between sessions?