agentOS
Rivet's open-source WebAssembly-backed runtime for running and orchestrating AI agents with a lightweight in-process VM, a sandboxed filesystem, and deploy routes to local, self-hosted, or Rivet Cloud environments.
What it is
agentOS is Rivet's attempt to move part of the agent runtime below the harness and above raw containers: a portable, WebAssembly-backed environment where agents can execute commands, hold files, enforce permissions, and coordinate workflows without paying the startup and memory cost of a full Linux sandbox. The launch artifact frames v0.2.0 as "faster, lighter, cheaper than a sandbox," with benchmark claims around cold start, memory, and run cost. Treat those as vendor claims until reproduced on Kevin's workloads. Source: X/@rivet_dev and local video review, 2026-07-04
The repo and docs position it as an open-source "OS for AI agents" that can run built-in ACP-style agents such as Pi, Claude Code, and OpenCode, or a bring-your-own agent. The runtime emphasizes near-zero cold starts, deny-by-default permissions, embedding inside a backend process, and deployment to local infrastructure, self-hosted servers, or Rivet Cloud. Source: rivet-dev/agentos README and docs, 2026-07-04
Routing
Use agentOS when the job needs a low-latency agent execution environment, a controlled filesystem/process surface, or multiplayer/workflow orchestration around existing coding-agent CLIs. It is especially relevant for product experiments where an agent should feel resident without provisioning a full remote devbox for every action.
Do not treat it as a replacement for every agent sandbox. Full microVM or container sandboxes still win when the workload needs browser automation, native packages, long-running dev servers, kernel-level isolation, or hostile untrusted code. The useful distinction is:
| Need | Prefer |
|---|---|
| In-process agent VM, small filesystem, fast command loop | agentOS |
| Full Linux environment, browser/dev-server/native dependency work | Browser Testing Skills, E2B Code Sandboxes, Dedalus Machines |
| Provider-agnostic substrate routing | ComputeSDK or higher-level product routing |
Current source snapshot
As of 2026-07-04, rivet-dev/agentos is Apache-2.0 with 3,512 GitHub stars, 167 forks, 33 open issues, default branch main, and latest checked commit 36e6630 from 2026-07-03. GitHub releases show stable v0.2.4 from 2026-06-27 and prerelease v0.2.5-rc.1 from 2026-07-04. npm shows @rivet-dev/agentos-core@0.2.4, @agentos-software/common@0.3.1, and @agentos-software/codex-cli@0.3.1. Source: GitHub and npm registry checks, 2026-07-04
Why Kevin should care
agentOS is the WebAssembly/in-process counter-position to the Persistent Sandbox Thesis: instead of assuming every useful agent needs a full remote computer, it asks how much work can be moved into a smaller, cheaper, faster resident VM. That does not invalidate the "agents need computers" thesis. It sharpens the routing boundary: some agents need a durable machine; some need a fast, permissioned runtime with enough filesystem and process semantics to behave like one.
Timeline
- 2026-07-04 | Page created from the Rivet agentOS v0.2 bookmark review. Source snapshot recorded GitHub repo health, release channel, npm versions, and the launch video's benchmark/product-positioning claims. Source: X/@rivet_dev, GitHub, npm, local artifact review, 2026-07-04
- 2026-06-25 | Rivet launched agentOS v0.2.0, framing it as a lightweight WebAssembly sandbox and orchestration layer for Pi, Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, bring-your-own agents, multiplayer workflows, and one-prompt deploys. Source: Rivet changelog, 2026-06-25