Persistence, pause & resume

State is a product decision. A sandbox can be disposable, long-running, paused, cold-stored, or backed by volumes. See Lifecycle states for the full state model. For stateful agent and service workspaces, see Persistent workspaces.

What can persist

State	Mechanism	Notes
Files inside a running VM	VM runtime disk	Lost when the VM is destroyed unless captured or copied out.
Host-mounted files	Mount or copy workflow	Host exposure depends on mount mode and path selection.
Managed local volume	mvmctl volume	Encrypted at rest when locked.
Machine state	pause/resume or snapshot save/restore	May contain memory, files, processes, and credentials present in the guest.

Pause and resume

mvmctl pause agent-sandbox
mvmctl resume agent-sandbox

The exact backend mechanics differ. See Snapshots for Firecracker sealed snapshots and Vz machine-state files.

Cold mode

Cold mode is the product posture where a sandbox is snapshotted, compute is released, and the sandbox can later be restored. See Cold mode.

Cleanup

mvmctl down agent-sandbox
mvmctl sandbox gc
mvmctl cleanup

Stopping compute does not automatically erase every artifact. Check volumes, snapshots, receipts, logs, and caches when the workflow needs stronger cleanup.

Security notes

• Treat snapshots as sensitive state.
• Avoid preserving browser sessions or agent workspaces unless required.
• Lock managed volumes after use.
• Prefer explicit destroy/cleanup steps in tutorials and automation.