Sandboxing — For Everyone

Edition E — no technical background needed. A plain-language tour, told through one running analogy: a workshop with a lockable room. No code, no commands. The four things you must not lose in the simplification are stated as plain sentences, not just analogy.

The analogy in one breath

agentteams hires a very capable but very literal worker (an AI agent) to build something. Because the worker does exactly what its notes say — even notes a stranger slipped in — you can put it in a locked room so a mistake can't spill into the rest of the building. This guide is about that room: when you get one, how the lock actually works, and — honestly — what the lock does and does not do.

The four things that are always true (please keep these)

1. By default the room is unlocked. You have to ask for the locked room.
2. The lock does nothing until someone turns the key. Being handed a lock is not the same as being locked in.
3. The lock is proven on one kind of building (Linux). On Macs it's advice, not a proven lock; on Windows there's no lock to hand out.
4. It keeps a careless worker's mess in the room. It does not stop someone who already holds the building's master key.

Contents

• Part I — What it is & why
• Part II — Asking for the room
• Part III — Which buildings have a lock
• Part IV — The three kinds of lock
• Part V — Turning the key — and the optional "only the foreman holds the pen" rule
• Part VI — The tamper-evident seal
• Part VII — What the lock can't do
• Part VIII — The whole story