Isolade
Install
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Quickstart

From install to a running agent in about five minutes.

This walks through installing Isolade, defining a one-repo workspace, and running an agent in it.

1. Install

One command covers both platforms. It detects your OS and architecture and runs the right steps:

curl -fsSL https://isolade.com/install.sh | sh

On Linux you’ll need KVM and membership in the kvm group. See Installation for the full requirements.

Open the app. On first launch it writes an example config under ~/.config/isolade.

2. Sign in to an agent

Go to Settings → Accounts and click Sign in for Claude or Codex. A throwaway VM runs the CLI’s login flow, your browser opens the authorize page, and the callback finishes it for you. There are no codes to copy.

Isolade signs in on its own, like a second device. Your claude and codex CLIs on the host keep their own logins. See Agent accounts for the details.

3. Define a workspace

A workspace is a directory under ~/.config/isolade/workspaces/. The directory name is the workspace id. Create one for a local checkout:

mkdir -p ~/.config/isolade/workspaces/myapp
cd ~/.config/isolade/workspaces/myapp

Write a config.toml:

[build]
dockerfile = "./Dockerfile"

[[repos]]
name   = "myapp"
source = "~/src/myapp"

And a Dockerfile next to it. The workspace directory is the main build context (so files beside config.toml are available to a plain COPY), and each repo arrives as a named context, keyed by its name, that you copy from:

FROM ubuntu:24.04
WORKDIR /workspace/myapp
COPY --from=myapp . .

Isolade renames your last stage and stacks the agent tooling on top, so you don’t install claude or codex yourself.

4. Build and run

Isolade picks up the new directory on its next startup, or restart the app. The workspace gets an initial build (BuildKit runs in a VM, so the first build is slow and later builds reuse the cache).

When the build finishes, create an instance. Each instance is a fresh microVM. Open a chat, pick a model, and give the agent a task. It runs unattended inside the VM. Watch the diff count climb in the sidebar, and review the changes when it’s done.

Next steps

  • Add a secret so the agent can push to GitHub without ever seeing your token.
  • Spread the workspace across several repos.
  • Mount a build cache so rebuilds stay fast.