Live view

Live view streams a sandbox to a browser: its terminal, or its desktop. Your backend mints a short-lived viewer token with your API key, and your page shows the returned embed URL in an iframe. Many people can watch the same sandbox; the sandbox serves one stream per view, whatever the number of viewers.

Mode (`channels`)	Shows	Status
`pty` (embed mode `terminal`)	A shell in the sandbox (xterm.js). Needs `control` scope: it starts a shell	Available
`desktop`	The `desktop` template’s screen (noVNC)	Available
`dom`	The page open in the sandbox’s Chrome, recorded with rrweb and replayed in your browser: light, sharp at any size, passwords masked. Templates with Chrome (`desktop`, `coding-agent`); Chrome is started with DevTools on first use if it is not running	Available
`thumb`	A 320 px WebP of the screen (or of the active Chrome page) every 3 seconds	Available

Scopes: view watches; control also sends keystrokes, mouse and resize. Tokens last 30 to 600 seconds (default 600).

Mint a token

import os
from anona import Sandbox

sbx = Sandbox.connect(os.environ["SANDBOX_ID"])

url = sbx.live.url(mode="pty", scope="control", ttl=300)  # terminal you can type into
print(url)

tok = sbx.live.token(scope="view", channels=["desktop"], ttl=120)
print(tok.expires_at, tok.claims()["ch"])

sbx.live.revoke_all()  # closes every open viewer, invalidates issued tokens

import { Sandbox } from "@anona/sdk";

const sbx = await Sandbox.connect(process.env.SANDBOX_ID!);

const url = await sbx.live.url({ mode: "pty", scope: "control", ttl: 300 });
console.log(url);

const tok = await sbx.live.token({ scope: "view", channels: ["desktop"], ttl: 120 });
console.log(tok.expiresAt, tok.claims().ch);

await sbx.live.revokeAll();

anona-compute view "$SANDBOX_ID" --mode terminal --control --ttl 5m
anona-compute view "$SANDBOX_ID" --mode desktop --json

The embed URL looks like https://stream.compute.anonalabs.com/embed/v1/<id>?mode=terminal#t=<token>. The token is in the URL fragment, which browsers never send to a server, so it does not end up in logs.

Embed it

Mint the token on your server (never ship your API key to a browser) and put the URL in an iframe:

<iframe
  src="https://stream.compute.anonalabs.com/embed/v1/SANDBOX_ID?mode=terminal#t=TOKEN"
  style="width: 100%; height: 480px; border: 0"
></iframe>

Keep a long session alive

A token expires after at most 10 minutes. The embed asks its host page for a new one shortly before that, with postMessage. Answer it with a fresh token from your backend:

const frame = document.querySelector("iframe");
const streamOrigin = "https://stream.compute.anonalabs.com";

window.addEventListener("message", async (event) => {
  if (event.origin !== streamOrigin || event.data?.source !== "anona-viewer") return;
  if (event.data.type === "token-request") {
    const { token } = await fetch("/api/viewer-token").then((r) => r.json()); // your backend mints it
    frame.contentWindow.postMessage(
      { source: "anona-viewer-host", type: "token", id: event.data.id, token },
      streamOrigin,
    );
  }
  if (event.data.type === "state") console.log("viewer", event.data.state);
});

The viewer reconnects on its own after network drops. It stops for good when the token is revoked, the sandbox is gone, or the token does not allow the channel.

Thumbnails

For lists and dashboards, fetch the latest thumbnail directly. It is a WebP while the sandbox has a screen or a Chrome page to show, and 204 No Content otherwise:

thumbnail.sh

code=$(curl -sS -o thumb.webp -w '%{http_code}' \
  "https://api.compute.anonalabs.com/v1/sandboxes/$SANDBOX_ID/thumbnail" -H "X-API-Key: $E2B_API_KEY")
echo "thumbnail: HTTP $code"   # 200 with image/webp, or 204 when there is nothing to show

The sandbox grabs frames only while someone asks for them, and every viewer shares the same frames. Send If-None-Match with the last ETag to get 304 when nothing changed.

Who may mint

Caller	`view`	`control`
API key with `sandboxes:use`	Yes	Yes
Dashboard owner, admin, member	Yes	Yes
Dashboard viewer	Yes	No

A key limited to certain sandboxes can mint only for those. A sandbox of another organization answers 404. The dashboard’s sandbox page has the same live view built in.

Get started

Agent onboarding

Concepts

Guides

Recipes

CLI

SDKs

API reference

Sandboxes and templates (E2B)

Anona

Account

Help

Mint a token

Embed it

Keep a long session alive

Thumbnails

Who may mint

​Mint a token

​Embed it

​Keep a long session alive

​Thumbnails

​Who may mint

Mint a token

Embed it

Keep a long session alive

Thumbnails

Who may mint