Vercel Sandbox now runs on Vercel Managed Images
Vercel Sandbox defaults to managed images with preinstalled coding agents — no custom builds needed for most users.
Why it matters
Vercel simplifies sandbox environments for AI-assisted development by shipping Claude Code, Codexa, Pigix, and other coding agents in the base image. Practitioners using Vercel for agent-native development or code generation workflows get a faster, more reliable foundation.
The key facts
12 to knowVercel Sandbox now defaults to vercel/sandbox/universal:latest (Ubuntu 26.04)
Managed Images include Node.js 24, Python 3.14, and preinstalled coding agents (Claude Code, Codexa, Pigix)
Amazon Linux runtimes deprecated in favor of Ubuntu base; lighter, more industry-standard
Nightly releases with automatic security patches and dependency updates; optional digest-pinning for reproducibility
Open-source image sources in public vercel/sandbox repository; users can extend or contribute
SDK v3+ defaults to managed images; previous runtime property deprecated but functional
Vercel Sandbox SDK v3 defaults to vercel/sandbox/universal:latest on Ubuntu 26.04
Default image ships with Node.js 24, Python 3.14, and preinstalled coding agents: Claude, Codex, Pixi
Managed images receive nightly releases with automatic OS and dependency updates, including security patches
Deprecates previous Sandbox runtimes; Amazon Linux AL2023 no longer in managed catalog
Images support digest pinning for reproducible, immutable environments
Source code for all images in public repository vercel/sandbox
Go to the source
Vercel Blogvercel.com
Publisher excerpt: Today we are introducing Vercel Managed Images (VMI), a set of versioned, open-source base images you can use as-is or extend. The source for every image lives in the public repository.vercel/sandbox Managed images replace Sandbox runtimes, which are now deprecated. Starting with version 3 of the…
