> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.novita.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Pause & Resume Sandbox

Sandbox persistence lets you pause a sandbox and resume it later with the same filesystem and memory state. This is useful for long-running agent tasks, interactive apps, and workflows that need to survive idle periods without keeping compute resources active.

## Manual pause and resume

When a sandbox is paused:

* Files created in the sandbox are preserved.
* In-memory state is preserved, including running processes and variables.
* Network connections are interrupted until the sandbox resumes.
* The sandbox remains stored until you resume and kill it, or kill it while it is paused.

<CodeGroup>
  ```js JavaScript & TypeScript icon="js" theme={"system"}
  import { Novita } from 'novita-sandbox'

  const novita = new Novita()
  const sandbox = await novita.sandbox.create()

  await sandbox.commands.run('echo hello > /tmp/message.txt')
  const sandboxId = sandbox.sandboxId
  await sandbox.pause()

  console.log('Sandbox paused', sandboxId)

  const resumed = await novita.sandbox.connect(sandboxId)
  const result = await resumed.commands.run('cat /tmp/message.txt')
  console.log(result.stdout)

  await resumed.kill()
  ```

  ```python Python icon="python" theme={"system"}
  from novita_sandbox import Novita

  novita = Novita()
  sandbox = novita.sandbox.create()

  sandbox.commands.run("echo hello > /tmp/message.txt")
  sandbox_id = sandbox.sandbox_id
  sandbox.pause()

  print('Sandbox paused', sandbox_id)

  resumed = novita.sandbox.connect(sandbox_id)
  result = resumed.commands.run("cat /tmp/message.txt")
  print(result.stdout)

  resumed.kill()
  ```

  ```bash CLI icon="terminal" theme={"system"}
  # Pause a running sandbox (alias: sandbox ps)
  novita-sandbox-cli sandbox pause <sandboxID>

  # Resume a paused sandbox (alias: sandbox rs)
  novita-sandbox-cli sandbox resume <sandboxID>
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## Auto pause and resume

Use lifecycle settings when you want the sandbox to pause automatically after timeout and optionally resume when activity is detected.

<CodeGroup>
  ```js JavaScript & TypeScript icon="js" theme={"system"}
  import { Novita } from 'novita-sandbox'

  const novita = new Novita()
  const sandbox = await novita.sandbox.create({
    timeoutMs: 10 * 60 * 1000,
    lifecycle: {
      onTimeout: 'pause',
      autoResume: true,
    },
  })

  await sandbox.files.write('/home/user/hello.txt', 'hello from a paused sandbox')
  await sandbox.pause()

  const content = await sandbox.files.read('/home/user/hello.txt')
  console.log(content)
  console.log(`State after read: ${(await sandbox.getInfo()).state}`)
  ```

  ```python Python icon="python" theme={"system"}
  from novita_sandbox import Novita

  novita = Novita()
  sandbox = novita.sandbox.create(
      timeout=10 * 60,
      lifecycle={
          'on_timeout': 'pause',
          'auto_resume': True,
      },
  )

  sandbox.files.write('/home/user/hello.txt', 'hello from a paused sandbox')
  sandbox.pause()

  content = sandbox.files.read('/home/user/hello.txt')
  print(content)
  print(f'State after read: {sandbox.get_info().state}')
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## Web server example

Auto-resume works well for preview environments and web servers.

<CodeGroup>
  ```js JavaScript & TypeScript icon="js" theme={"system"}
  import { Novita } from 'novita-sandbox'

  const novita = new Novita()
  const sandbox = await novita.sandbox.create({
    timeoutMs: 5 * 60 * 1000,
    lifecycle: {
      onTimeout: 'pause',
      autoResume: true,
    },
  })

  await sandbox.commands.run('python3 -m http.server 3000', { background: true })
  const host = sandbox.getHost(3000)
  console.log(`Preview URL: https://${host}`)
  ```

  ```python Python icon="python" theme={"system"}
  from novita_sandbox import Novita

  novita = Novita()
  sandbox = novita.sandbox.create(
      timeout=5 * 60,
      lifecycle={
          'on_timeout': 'pause',
          'auto_resume': True,
      },
  )

  sandbox.commands.run('python3 -m http.server 3000', background=True)
  host = sandbox.get_host(3000)
  print(f'Preview URL: https://{host}')
  ```
</CodeGroup>