--- title: Your agent needs a computer, not a container —... description: Cloudflare is introducing @cloudflare/computer, an open-source agent runtime that abstracts over isolates and Linux containers to give each AI agent its own... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/your-agent-needs-a-computer-not-a-container-introducing-cloudflare-computer-vzfwsyuug twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Your agent needs a computer, not a container — introducing @cloudflare/computer | daily.dev og:description: Cloudflare is introducing @cloudflare/computer, an open-source agent runtime that abstracts over isolates and Linux containers to give each AI agent its own... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/your-agent-needs-a-computer-not-a-container-introducing-cloudflare-computer-vzfwsyuug og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/VZFWsYuug.png og:image:alt: Your agent needs a computer, not a container — introducing @cloudflare/computer og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Your agent needs a computer, not a container — introducing @cloudflare/computer **[Cloudflare](https://daily.dev/sources/cloudflare)** · 9 min read · 6 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Cloudflare is introducing @cloudflare/computer, an open-source agent runtime that abstracts over isolates and Linux containers to give each AI agent its own virtual computer. The package provides a durable SQLite-backed filesystem that works across both execution environments, letting agents run lightweight tasks in fast isolates and heavier tasks in full containers — without developers having to manage the orchestration themselves. The goal is to make agent compute horizontally scalable beyond what traditional containerization allows, targeting less than 10% container usage for most agent workloads. Code examples show integration with Durable Objects, git cloning, file tools, and shell execution backends. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is @cloudflare/computer and how do I install it? @cloudflare/computer is an open-source npm package from Cloudflare that provides an agent runtime combining a durable, SQLite-backed virtual filesystem with pluggable execution backends. It ships with an isolate-based runtime using just-bash translated to JavaScript for lightweight file and git tasks, and a container runtime using Cloudflare Containers with a FUSE-mounted filesystem for full Linux environments. Install it via 'npm install @cloudflare/computer'. _Developers evaluating agent runtimes can track releases like this one on daily.dev._ ### How does Cloudflare decide whether an AI agent task runs in an isolate or a container? Cloudflare's exec tool exposes a backend argument and relies on the tool description to guide the model toward the right choice: a fast, cheap worker-based isolate backend for file manipulation, data processing, or git operations, and a full container backend when a task needs Linux, npm, or native binaries. Frontier models tested were reported to reliably pick isolates and fall back to containers only when truly necessary, with the goal being containers used for under 10% of total agent work. _Teams weighing container versus isolate tradeoffs for AI agents can follow this space on daily.dev._ ### Why is Cloudflare moving away from giving every AI agent its own container? Giving every agent a dedicated containerized environment does not scale to hundreds of millions or billions of concurrent agents, since there is not enough compute capacity across all cloud hyperscalers to support that model. Cloudflare instead separates the agent harness, which runs in an isolate via Durable Objects, from heavier execution, which runs in an on-demand container, allowing horizontal scale from isolates and vertical scale from containers only when needed. _Engineers scaling agent infrastructure can keep up with runtime architecture shifts like this via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Agents have their own computers with Sandboxes GA](https://daily.dev/posts/agents-have-their-own-computers-with-sandboxes-ga-bvcsfels6) · Cloudflare · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [OpenComputer: The easiest way to deploy a managed agent.](https://daily.dev/posts/opencomputer-the-easiest-way-to-deploy-a-managed-agent--dconq8wxu) · Product Hunt · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Cloudflare Completes Its Agent Infrastructure Stack with Browser Run Rebuild and Six-Layer Platform](https://daily.dev/posts/cloudflare-completes-its-agent-infrastructure-stack-with-browser-run-rebuild-and-six-layer-platform-a6e8lzm00) · InfoQ · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#containers](https://daily.dev/tags/containers), [#cloudflare](https://daily.dev/tags/cloudflare) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/your-agent-needs-a-computer-not-a-container-introducing-cloudflare-computer-vzfwsyuug) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Your agent needs a computer, not a container — introducing @cloudflare/computer","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-agent-needs-a-computer-not-a-container-introducing-cloudflare-computer-vzfwsyuug","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-agent-needs-a-computer-not-a-container-introducing-cloudflare-computer-vzfwsyuug"},"datePublished":"2026-08-03T13:03:31.129Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:15:50.379Z","description":"Cloudflare is introducing @cloudflare/computer, an open-source agent runtime that abstracts over isolates and Linux containers to give each AI agent its own...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5e55d01c52a65a257934891270946404?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5e55d01c52a65a257934891270946404?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Cloudflare","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Cloudflare","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/38522e1d11354cd6b7af66f9d4316735","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/cloudflare"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-agent-needs-a-computer-not-a-container-introducing-cloudflare-computer-vzfwsyuug","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":6},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-agents,containers,cloudflare","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cloudflare","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/cloudflare"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Your agent needs a computer, not a container — introducing @cloudflare/computer"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-agent-needs-a-computer-not-a-container-introducing-cloudflare-computer-vzfwsyuug#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What is @cloudflare/computer and how do I install it?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"@cloudflare/computer is an open-source npm package from Cloudflare that provides an agent runtime combining a durable, SQLite-backed virtual filesystem with pluggable execution backends. 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