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Quickstart

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This page gets you from a reachable OpenShell gateway to a running, policy-enforced sandbox.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • A reachable OpenShell gateway.
  • At least one compute driver configured for the gateway: Kubernetes, Docker, Podman, or MicroVM.
  • The OpenShell CLI installed on your workstation.

For a complete list of requirements, refer to Support Matrix. If you have not chosen a compute driver yet, refer to Installation.

Install the OpenShell CLI

Run the install script:

$curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NVIDIA/OpenShell/main/install.sh | sh

The install script uses Homebrew, RPM, or a Debian package based on your machine. It starts the local gateway server after installation.

If you prefer uv:

$uv tool install -U openshell

After installing the CLI, run openshell --help in your terminal to view the full CLI reference.

You can also clone the NVIDIA OpenShell GitHub repository and use the /openshell-cli skill to load the CLI reference into your agent.

Create Your First OpenShell Sandbox

Create a sandbox and launch an agent inside it. Choose the tab that matches your agent:

Run the following command to create a sandbox with Claude Code:

$openshell sandbox create -- claude

The CLI prompts you to create a provider from local credentials. Type yes to continue. If ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set in your environment, the CLI picks it up automatically. If not, you can configure it from inside the sandbox after it launches.