container-use

Containerized environments for coding agents. (📦🤖) (📦🤖) (📦🤖)

Container Use lets each of your coding agents have their own containerized environment. Go from babysitting one agent at a time to enabling multiple agents to work safely and independently with your preferred stack.

It's an open-source MCP server that works as a CLI tool with Claude Code, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible agents.

• 📦 Isolated Environments: Each agent gets a fresh container in its own git branch - run multiple agents without conflicts, experiment safely, discard failures instantly.
• 👀 Real-time Visibility: See complete command history and logs of what agents actually did, not just what they claim.
• 🚁 Direct Intervention: Drop into any agent's terminal to see their state and take control when they get stuck.
• 🎮 Environment Control: Standard git workflow - just git checkout <branch_name> to review any agent's work.
• 🌎 Universal Compatibility: Works with any agent, model, or infrastructure - no vendor lock-in.

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🦺 This project is in early development and actively evolving. Expect rough edges, breaking changes, and incomplete documentation. But also expect rapid iteration and responsiveness to feedback.

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Install

make

This will build the cu binary but NOT install it to your $PATH. If you want to build and install the binary into your $PATH, run:

make install && hash -r

The make install command will put cu in your $PATH. In order to use it, you will need to restart your terminal or run hash -r to refresh your $PATH (or equivalent for your shell).

The build uses the platform you are on by default. If you need to cross-compile you can use the TARGETPLATFORM environment variables. For example TARGETPLATFORM=linux/arm64 make to build for Raspberry Pi or TARGETPLATFORM=darwin/arm64 make to build for macOS Apple Silicon.

Integrate Agents

Enabling container-use requires 2 steps:

1. Adding an MCP configuration for container-use
2. (Optional) Adding a rule so the agent uses containarized environments.

Claude Code

Add the container-use MCP:

npx @anthropic-ai/claude-code mcp add container-use -- <path to cu> stdio

Save the CLAUDE.md file at the root of the repository. Alternatively, merge the instructions into your own CLAUDE.md.

curl -o CLAUDE.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dagger/container-use/main/rules/agent.md

goose

Add this to ~/.config/goose/config.yaml:

extensions:
  container-use:
    name: container-use
    type: stdio
    enabled: true
    cmd: cu
    args:
    - stdio
    envs: {}

Cursor

curl --create-dirs -o .cursor/rules/container-use.mdc https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dagger/container-use/main/rules/cursor.mdc

VSCode / GitHub Copilot

The result of the instructions above will be to update your VSCode settings with something that looks like this:

    "mcp": {
        "servers": {
            "container-use": {
                "type": "stdio",
                "command": "cu",
                "args": [
                    "stdio"
                ]
            }
        }
    }

Once the MCP server is running, you can optionally) update the instructions for copilot using the following:

curl --create-dirs -o .github/copilot-instructions.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dagger/container-use/main/rules/agent.md

Kilo Code

Kilo Code allows setting MCP servers at the global or project level.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "container-use": {
      "command": "replace with pathname of cu",
      "args": [
        "stdio"
      ],
      "env": {},
      "alwaysAllow": [],
      "disabled": false
    }
  }
}

Examples

Example	Description
hello_world.md	Creates a simple app and runs it, accessible via localhost HTTP URL
parallel.md	Creates and serves two variations of a hello world app (Flask and FastAPI) on different URLs
security.md	Security scanning example that checks for updates/vulnerabilities in the repository, applies updates, verifies builds still work, and generates patch file

Run with Claude Code

cat ./examples/hello_world.md | claude

Run with goose

goose run -i ./examples/hello_world.md -s

Run with Kilo Code in vscode

Prompt as in parallel.md but added a sentence 'use container-use mcp'

Watch your agents work

Your agents will automatically commit to a container-use remote on your local filesystem. You can watch the progress of your agents in real time by running:

cu watch