Daytona Provider

Read when:

• choosing provider: daytona;
• configuring Daytona API auth, snapshots, or SSH access;
• changing internal/providers/daytona.

Daytona is a hybrid provider. run and warmup use Daytona SDK/toolbox APIs for sandbox lifecycle, archive upload, extraction, and process execution. Explicit ssh access mints a short-lived Daytona SSH token and then uses the normal Crabbox SSH client.

#When To Use

Use Daytona when the sandbox image should come from a Daytona snapshot and command execution should stay inside Daytona's toolbox APIs. Use AWS, Hetzner, or Static SSH when you need a normal long-lived SSH lease for Actions hydration or VNC/code workflows.

#Commands

crabbox warmup --provider daytona --daytona-snapshot crabbox-ready
crabbox run --provider daytona --daytona-snapshot crabbox-ready -- pnpm test
crabbox run --provider daytona --id blue-lobster -- pnpm test:changed
crabbox ssh --provider daytona --id blue-lobster
crabbox stop --provider daytona blue-lobster

#Auth

Use the Daytona CLI login:

daytona login --api-key ...

Crabbox reads the active Daytona CLI profile when no Daytona auth environment variables are set.

You can also use explicit environment auth with an API key:

export DAYTONA_API_KEY=...

or JWT auth:

export DAYTONA_JWT_TOKEN=...
export DAYTONA_ORGANIZATION_ID=...

DAYTONA_ORGANIZATION_ID is required with JWT auth. Explicit environment or Crabbox config values override the Daytona CLI profile.

#Config

provider: daytona
target: linux
daytona:
  apiUrl: https://app.daytona.io/api
  snapshot: crabbox-ready
  target: ""
  user: daytona
  workRoot: /home/daytona/crabbox
  sshGatewayHost: ssh.app.daytona.io
  sshAccessMinutes: 30

Provider flags:

--daytona-api-url
--daytona-snapshot
--daytona-target
--daytona-user
--daytona-work-root
--daytona-ssh-gateway-host
--daytona-ssh-access-minutes

#Lifecycle

1. Create or resolve a Daytona sandbox from daytona.snapshot.
2. Store Crabbox labels and local repo claims.
3. For run, build the Crabbox sync manifest, create a gzipped tar archive,

stream the archive to Daytona toolbox upload, extract it, and execute through Daytona process APIs.

4. For ssh, request short-lived SSH access, parse Daytona's sshCommand, and

redact the token in normal output.

5. Delete the sandbox on release unless the lease is kept.

#Capabilities

• SSH: yes, explicit short-lived token access.
• Crabbox sync: yes, archive sync through Daytona toolbox.
• Desktop/browser/code: no current Crabbox VNC/code surface.
• Actions hydration: no.
• Coordinator: no.

#Gotchas

• daytona.snapshot is required when creating a sandbox.
• Snapshot contents own CPU, memory, disk, and installed tooling in this mode.
• Daytona run is delegated to toolbox APIs; it is not the same as core-over-SSH

execution.

• --script, --script-stdin, --fresh-pr, local stdout/stderr captures,

--capture-on-fail, and --download are rejected for Daytona run because command transport is delegated to toolbox APIs.

• --keep-on-failure keeps a newly created failed sandbox until Daytona

auto-stop or explicit crabbox stop.

• --actions-runner is rejected because it needs a normal SSH lease host.

Related docs:

• Feature: Daytona
• Provider backends