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.

🦺 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.

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).

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.

# 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

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

extensions:
  container-use:
    name: container-use
    type: stdio
    enabled: true
    cmd: cu
    args:
    - stdio
    envs: []

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

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

cat ./examples/hello_world.md | claude

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

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