Attaching to a running sandbox

Once a sandbox is running (started with airlock start), you can open additional sessions into it using airlock exec. This is useful when you need a second terminal inside the VM — for example, to run tests in one window while an agent works in another.

airlock exec bash

The shorthand alias airlock x does the same thing:

airlock x bash

You can run any command, not just shells:

airlock exec cat /etc/os-release
airlock exec python3 -m pytest tests/

Working directory

airlock exec walks up from the current directory to find the sandbox’s .airlock/sandbox/cli.sock and runs the command in the same directory inside the VM. To override, use --cwd (or -w):

airlock exec -w /tmp ls -la

Environment variables

Extra environment variables can be passed with -e (repeatable):

airlock exec -e DEBUG=1 -e LOG_LEVEL=trace ./run-tests.sh

They’re layered on top of the sandbox’s resolved environment (image env + airlock.toml env); entries with the same key replace the base value.

Login shell

Like start, the --login flag sources profile scripts before running the command:

airlock exec --login bash