boxdNightly

boxd is a cloud service that runs each workroom on a machine of its own. This page covers the one-time setup, which Workroom walks you through, and creating a workroom on boxd. For what remote workrooms are, see Remote workrooms.

To use a server you already have, choose an SSH host instead.

Before you start

• Your project's origin must be on github.com, and its base branch must be on origin. See Remote workrooms.
• You need a boxd account. After signing up, payment is required, as the setup sheet says.

You do not need to install anything first. Workroom installs boxd for you.

Set up boxd

The first time you create a workroom on boxd, Workroom checks that boxd is ready. If it is, the create carries on. If it is not, the Set up boxd sheet opens over the new workroom's pane, and the pane's Check boxd account step shows Waiting for you.

The sheet has three steps. Workroom checks each one itself and ticks it off when it is done, so you only do what is not done yet.

1. Install. Click Install boxd. Workroom runs boxd's own installer, which puts the boxd command in ~/.local/bin. It needs no admin password and changes nothing else. If it fails, click Try Again.
2. Account. Click Sign In. boxd opens in your browser. Sign in there, or create an account there, and Workroom carries on by itself. While it waits, Open the Sign-In Page Again reopens the page, and Stop stops waiting.
3. GitHub. Click Connect GitHub, and connect your GitHub account in your browser. This lets your machines clone and push as you, through boxd's git integration. Open GitHub Again and Stop work as they do for the account step.

When every step has a tick, click Create Workroom. The create that the sheet interrupted carries on, in the same pane. Cancel ends it and removes the pane. Closing the sheet cancels the setup.

If a check cannot get an answer, the step says so, and Create Workroom is available anyway. Check Again reads the step again. In that case boxd decides: if something is really missing, the create fails and says what.

Create a workroom on boxd

1. Click the + on a project, or right-click the project and choose New Workroom.
2. Under Remote, choose boxd.
3. Watch the checklist in the pane. When it finishes, click Done, or turn on Close automatically when done and the terminal opens by itself.

The workroom's terminals run on the boxd machine. A coding agent you start there keeps running when you close Workroom. See Reconnecting for what happens when your Mac sleeps or changes network.

If the clone fails with a message that GitHub refused it, a boxd machine reaches GitHub through your boxd git integration. Connect it by running boxd manage integrations connect git in a terminal.

Ports

A boxd machine has no Ports list in the inspector. To reach a server running on it from a browser, publish the port with boxd. See Port forwarding.

Delete the workroom

Deleting the workroom destroys its machine and everything on it. See Delete a remote workroom.