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 machine volume	Encrypted at rest when locked.
Machine state	pause/resume or checkpoint create/restore	May contain memory, files, processes, and credentials present in the guest.

Pause and resume

mvmctl machine pause agent-sandbox
mvmctl machine resume agent-sandbox

The exact backend mechanics differ. See Snapshots for the separate live-memory, machine-state, disk-only, standby, and cold-boot tiers. Use mvmctl doctor to see which tier the selected backend advertises.

Cold mode

Cold mode is the product posture where compute is released while an explicitly supported recovery artifact is retained. See Cold mode.

Cleanup

mvmctl machine stop agent-sandbox
mvmctl machine sandbox gc
mvmctl env 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.