boring computers

On-demand Linux computers you can hand to an AI.

Each one is a real Firecracker microVM —
a full machine with its own kernel — that boots in milliseconds, does its thing,
and self-destructs. Open source (Apache-2.0), self-hosted with your own keys.
boringcomputers.com is a showcase; you run the real
thing yourself.

One machine, everything on it — a live desktop with a real browser, a terminal
with coding agents preinstalled, and an AI you can hand the whole thing to.
Type "build a snake game" and it writes it, runs it, and gives you a link to play.

What you get

• A computer — a full Linux desktop (browser, terminal, apps) over VNC, or a
  fast headless shell.
• Coding agents preinstalled — claude, codex, cursor, pi, plus node,
  python, git and internet.
• An AI that drives it — say what you want. It either uses the screen
  (clicks, browses) or writes + runs code and hands you a live URL.
• Files & ports — drag files in and out; open any port through the daemon.
• Fork — clone a running computer, exact live state and all, in ~35 ms.
• Storage — persistent volumes (S3-backed) that outlive a machine.

Run your own

You need a machine that can run Firecracker: Ubuntu 24.04 x86_64 with
/dev/kvm (a bare-metal box, or a VM with nested virtualization) that you can
root-SSH into. One command turns it into a running boringd:

git clone https://github.com/michaelshimeles/boring-computers
cd boring-computers && npm install

# set it up on your box (installs Firecracker, builds the images, runs boringd)
BORING_ANTHROPIC_KEY=sk-ant-...  ./infra/setup.sh root@YOUR_BOX_IP

Don't have a box? If you use Latitude.sh,
infra/latitude/provision.sh creates one for you
first. Any other provider works too — just point setup.sh at it.

Then run the site against it:

# apps/web/.env
PUBLIC_BORING_URL=http://YOUR_BOX_IP:8080   # or a tunnel — see apps/web/.env.example
npm run dev -w web

setup.sh options (env): BORING_TOKEN (require auth), BORING_S3_*
(persistent volumes), BIND_LOCALHOST=1 (reach it only via SSH tunnel — most
private), SKIP_DESKTOP=1 (skip the ~8-min desktop image). Full REST + WebSocket
API in the docs.

From any AI — an MCP server (packages/mcp) lets Claude
Desktop, Cursor, and other agents spin up and drive your computers as a tool.
There's also a small Effect-native TypeScript client
(packages/sdk). Both run from source (not on npm).

How it works

Real hardware-virtualized isolation — a kernel per machine, not a shared
container. Each VM is jailed and resource-capped, restored from a memory
snapshot in ~3 ms, and self-destructs on a TTL. Guests are network-isolated
behind an egress firewall. The control plane is boringd/ (Go); host
setup is one command (infra/setup.sh).

Repo

A Turborepo monorepo (npm workspaces):

apps/web/          the site — SvelteKit
boringd/           the control plane — Go, runs the microVMs
packages/sdk/      @boring/sdk — Effect-native TypeScript client
packages/mcp/      @boring/mcp — MCP server
infra/setup.sh     one-command host setup (any Ubuntu + KVM box)
infra/latitude/    rootfs/kernel/image builds, networking, Caddy, Latitude helpers

npm install      # all workspaces
npm run dev      # the site
npm run build    # production build
npm run check    # type-check
npm run lint     # prettier + eslint

Contributing & license

Contributions welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md. Licensed under
Apache 2.0.