Cloud Agents
Run agents in the cloud on Modal, Fly.io, or Vercel Sandbox — they keep running after you close your Mac
Overview
Cloud Agents run your coding agents in a remote sandbox instead of on your Mac. Launch one from Agent Home and Agentastic provisions a VM with your chosen provider, syncs your worktree up to it, and runs the agent there. Because the session lives in the cloud:
- Agents keep running after you close your laptop.
- The same agent stays reachable from any of your machines.
- Sync Down from VM pulls the agent's changes back to your local worktree when you're ready.
Cloud worktrees share the same terminals, source control, and diff experience as local and remote workspaces, and show a cloud badge in the sidebar so you can tell them apart.
Supported Providers
Add one or more backends under Settings → Cloud. You can add several accounts of the same provider (for example a personal and a team Modal account).
| Provider | Best for | Credentials |
|---|---|---|
| Modal | Short-lived tasks | Token ID + Token Secret |
| Fly.io | Longer-lived, region-pinned machines | API Token |
| Vercel Sandbox | Vercel Sandbox microVMs | Access Token + Team ID + Project ID |
Adding a Provider
- Open Settings → Cloud.
- Click Add Provider and choose Modal, Fly.io, or Vercel Sandbox.
- Enter the credentials for that provider (see below). Agentastic validates them against the provider's API and stores them in your macOS Keychain — never in
settings.json, so your settings stay safe to sync or share. - Enable the provider.
Modal
- Token ID (
ak-…) and Token Secret (as-…) - Create them at modal.com/settings/tokens
Fly.io
- API Token (
fo1_…) from fly.io/user/personal_access_tokens - Optionally set an organization, an app-name prefix, and an IP allocation mode — IPv6 + dedicated IPv4 (most reliable for SSH from IPv4-only networks) or IPv6 only (avoids Fly's dedicated-IPv4 billing).
Vercel Sandbox
- Access Token (
vercel_…) from vercel.com/account/settings/tokens - Team ID (
team_…) and Project ID (prj_…) - Optionally choose a runtime (
node24,node22, orpython3.13) and a vCPU count (1, 2, 4, or 8).
Launching a Cloud Agent
- Open Agent Home.
- Compose your prompt and pick your agent as usual.
- Set the run target to a Cloud provider instead of Local.
- Send. Agentastic provisions the VM, syncs your worktree up, and starts the agent in the cloud.
Syncing Changes Back
While a cloud agent runs, its edits live on the VM. When you're ready to bring them home, use Sync Down from VM to pull the agent's changes into your local worktree.
Lifecycle & Cost Controls
Each provider account has guards that keep VMs from running away. Configure them per provider in Settings → Cloud:
| Setting | Default | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-destroy on idle | On | Shut the VM down after an idle window |
| Idle timeout | 800 seconds | How long with no activity before idle shutdown |
| Hard timeout | 8 hours | Maximum VM lifetime regardless of activity |
Sessions are persistent across app restarts: reopen Agentastic and your cloud workspaces restore, reconnecting to the still-running VM.
Related
- Remote Machines — run agents on your own dev boxes over SSH
- Agent Home — compose and launch agents
- Containers — isolate agents locally with Docker or Apple Container