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Many workloads don’t need a sandbox running all the time, but when they do need it, it should just work — whether it was paused or not. AutoResume handles this automatically: a paused sandbox wakes up when activity arrives, so your code doesn’t have to check or manage sandbox state. AutoResume builds on the sandbox persistence lifecycle.

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Configure AutoResume

Set the lifecycle object when creating a sandbox to control what happens on timeout and whether paused sandboxes should auto-resume. 
import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

const sandbox = await Sandbox.create({
  timeoutMs: 10 * 60 * 1000,
  lifecycle: {
    onTimeout: 'pause',
    autoResume: true, // resume when activity arrives
  },
})

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Lifecycle options

  • onTimeout / on_timeout
    • kill (default): sandbox is terminated when timeout is reached
    • pause: sandbox is paused when timeout is reached
  • autoResume / auto_resume
    • false (default): paused sandboxes do not auto-resume
    • true: paused sandboxes auto-resume on activity
    • true is valid only when onTimeout/on_timeout is pause
AutoResume is persistent — if a sandbox resumes and later times out again, it will pause again automatically. To permanently delete a sandbox, call .kill(). A killed sandbox cannot be resumed. If autoResume is false, you can still resume a paused sandbox manually with Sandbox.connect().

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What counts as activity

Auto-resume is triggered by sandbox activity — both HTTP traffic and SDK operations. That includes:
  • sandbox.commands.run(...)
  • sandbox.files.read(...)
  • sandbox.files.write(...)
  • Opening a tunneled app URL or sending requests to a service running inside the sandbox
If a sandbox is paused and autoResume is enabled, the next supported operation resumes it automatically. You do not need to call Sandbox.connect() first.

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SDK example: pause, then read a file

The following example writes a file, pauses the sandbox, then reads the file back. The read operation triggers an automatic resume. 
import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

const sandbox = await Sandbox.create({
  timeoutMs: 10 * 60 * 1000,
  lifecycle: {
    onTimeout: 'pause',
    autoResume: true,
  },
})

await sandbox.files.write('/home/user/hello.txt', 'hello from a paused sandbox')
await sandbox.pause()

const content = await sandbox.files.read('/home/user/hello.txt')
console.log(content)
console.log(`State after read: ${(await sandbox.getInfo()).state}`)

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Example: Web server with AutoResume

AutoResume is especially useful for web servers and preview environments. When an HTTP request arrives at a paused sandbox, the sandbox wakes up automatically to handle it. The following example starts a simple HTTP server and retrieves its public URL. Use getHost() / get_host() to get the sandbox’s publicly accessible hostname for a given port. 
import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

const sandbox = await Sandbox.create({
  timeoutMs: 5 * 60 * 1000,
  lifecycle: {
    onTimeout: 'pause',
    autoResume: true,
  },
})

await sandbox.commands.run('python3 -m http.server 3000', { background: true })

const host = sandbox.getHost(3000)
console.log(`Preview URL: https://${host}`)
Once the sandbox times out and pauses, any request to the preview URL will automatically resume it.