Features

Sprites

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Sprites

Read this when you:

  • choose provider: sprites;
  • debug Sprites token resolution, the sprite CLI, the SSH proxy, or bootstrap;
  • change Sprites lease creation, status, sync, or cleanup.

provider: sprites provisions a Sprites Linux microVM and adapts it into a normal Crabbox SSH lease. Sprites owns the microVM lifecycle and the sprite proxy transport. Crabbox owns local config, slugs, repo claims, per-lease SSH keys, rsync-based sync, command execution, timing summaries, and normalized list/status output. There is no Crabbox coordinator (broker) path for Sprites — it always runs direct from the CLI.

#Auth

Set a Sprites token through the environment or user config. Do not commit tokens to repo config.

export SPRITES_TOKEN=...

Crabbox resolves the token from the first set of these, in order:

  1. CRABBOX_SPRITES_TOKEN
  2. SPRITES_TOKEN
  3. SPRITE_TOKEN
  4. SETUP_SPRITE_TOKEN
  5. sprites.token in config

Install and authenticate the Sprites CLI before first use. Crabbox calls the Sprites HTTP API for sprite create/get/list/delete, and shells out to the local sprite CLI for sprite --version (a readiness check), sprite exec (running the SSH bootstrap inside the microVM), and sprite proxy (the SSH transport).

#Config

provider: sprites
target: linux
sprites:
  apiUrl: https://api.sprites.dev
  workRoot: /home/sprite/crabbox

Defaults: apiUrl is https://api.sprites.dev and workRoot is /home/sprite/crabbox. The API URL and work root also read from the environment:

  • CRABBOX_SPRITES_API_URL or SPRITES_API_URL → sprites.apiUrl
  • CRABBOX_SPRITES_WORK_ROOT → sprites.workRoot

Custom API URLs require HTTPS unless the host is literal loopback. Userinfo, queries, and fragments are rejected, and authenticated requests cannot follow redirects to another origin.

Equivalent one-off flags:

crabbox warmup --provider sprites
crabbox run --provider sprites --sprites-work-root /home/sprite/crabbox -- pnpm test
crabbox run --provider sprites --sprites-api-url https://api.sprites.dev -- pnpm test
crabbox ssh --provider sprites --id <slug>
crabbox status --provider sprites --id <slug>
crabbox stop --provider sprites <slug>

#Behavior

  • warmup creates a sprite named crabbox-<...> and a local Crabbox claim.
  • During bootstrap Crabbox ensures OpenSSH server, Git, rsync, tar, and python3 are installed (via apt-get when missing), appends the per-lease public key to /home/sprite/.ssh/authorized_keys, and starts sshd — registering it as a sprite-env service when that tool is available so it survives restarts.
  • The lease SSH user is sprite.
  • run creates or reuses a sprite, syncs the current Git manifest over SSH, and runs the command through Crabbox's standard SSH executor.
  • ssh prints a command that uses sprite proxy -s %h -W 22 as the SSH ProxyCommand.
  • status, list, and stop operate on Sprites resources mapped to local claims or provider labels; list only shows sprites whose name starts with crabbox-.
  • stop deletes the sprite and removes the local claim after provider cleanup succeeds.

#Boundaries

  • Linux only.
  • No coordinator; auth is local/provider-native.
  • No VNC, desktop, browser, or code-server.
  • --tailscale is rejected: Sprites exposes SSH through sprite proxy.
  • --class and --type do not apply to Sprites.
  • Actions hydration works, since the sprite is a normal Linux SSH target.

#Troubleshooting

  • provider=sprites requires SPRITES_TOKEN, SPRITE_TOKEN, SETUP_SPRITE_TOKEN, or CRABBOX_SPRITES_TOKEN: set one of those tokens (or sprites.token in config).
  • provider=sprites requires the sprite CLI on PATH and authenticated: install the authenticated Sprites CLI and ensure sprite is on PATH. Crabbox probes this with sprite --version.
  • sprite proxy failures mean SSH cannot reach the microVM even when API calls succeed. Run crabbox status --provider sprites --id <slug> --wait to retry the idempotent SSH bootstrap.
  • Slow first boot usually means package install inside the sprite is still running. Kept leases reuse the installed OpenSSH/rsync packages.
  • The work root must resolve to a dedicated absolute path (broad paths such as /, /home, /tmp are rejected). Prefer a subdirectory under the sprite user's home, for example /home/sprite/crabbox.