v4.0.0

Quickstart v4.0.0 Makes Safe AI Coding Sandboxes Easier, Faster, and More Approachable

Quickstart v4.0.0 is now available. This release is a major step toward making AI coding agents easier to use safely across delivery teams, including people who do not spend their day in the command line.

Quickstart is the tool that helps teams run AI coding agents inside isolated sandboxes connected to USAi. In plain English: it gives teams a more controlled place to use AI coding tools, so agents can help with project work without getting unrestricted access to someone's whole computer, network, or credentials.

The theme of v4.0.0 is lower setup friction, faster sandbox startup, smaller agent environments, safer defaults, and more confidence about what is running where.

What's New

A Friendlier Setup Experience

Quickstart now includes a guided configuration flow through acq configure.

Instead of expecting users to know every optional feature and command-line flag ahead of time, Quickstart can now show an interactive picker for additional capabilities. Users can choose optional kits such as:

• Paseo, for people who want a high-usability, web-driven experience that is independent of any particular agent or vendor ecosystem
• OCI engine support, for projects that need docker run or docker compose inside the sandbox

These choices are saved, so users do not have to repeat long flags on every run. Teams can set a sensible default once, while still allowing project-by-project exceptions.

For non-engineers, the practical benefit is simple: setup becomes more guided and less dependent on knowing the right incantation.

OpenCode v2 Is Now Included Through the Pinned OpenCode Kit

The pinned OpenCode kit now installs OpenCode v2. This is a big improvement for day-to-day use because OpenCode v2 substantially reduces both disk footprint and memory requirements.

That matters because sandboxes have finite disk space. A smaller OpenCode install reduces the likelihood that normal sandbox work fills the sandbox's disk, especially on projects that already need a lot of space for dependencies, test artifacts, browser downloads, or generated files.

This also keeps the agent installation reproducible: OpenCode comes from the pinned kit rather than from an ad hoc fallback install path.

Windows Preview Support

Quickstart v4.0.0 introduces the first Windows preview path.

This means Windows 11 users can begin trying the same sandboxed AI coding workflow that has already been available on macOS and Linux. The installer checks whether the machine is ready, guides users when it is not, and installs Quickstart through a Windows-friendly release path.

Important caveat: this preview currently works in environments where the user already has access to the required Windows virtualization features. That means it is not yet suitable for most GSA GFE-managed Windows machines, but it is an important step in that direction. Other agencies, labs, pilots, and unmanaged or admin-enabled Windows environments can benefit from it now.

Faster Sandbox Creation by Default

Quickstart no longer installs an in-sandbox container engine by default.

Previously, creating a new sandbox could involve downloading and setting up OCI/container tooling such as rootless Podman even when the project did not need it. In v4.0.0, that capability is opt-in.

That means new sandboxes can start faster, with less work during first-time setup and fewer moving parts in the default environment.

If a project does need docker run, docker compose, or rootless Podman inside the sandbox, users can enable the new oci-engine kit:

acq configure

Then select oci-engine.

This is a breaking change for teams that relied on container tooling being present automatically. Existing sandboxes are not migrated in place. Recreate the sandbox or enable oci-engine explicitly when that capability is needed.

Clearer Control Over Browser and App Ports

Quickstart v4.0.0 gives users more control over which host port points to which sandbox when creating a new sandbox.

That matters when a user has more than one sandbox running, or when a sandbox exposes a browser UI or local web app. Previously, users could end up needing to re-publish an exposed guest port onto a different host port after creation, which added friction and made it harder to remember which host port belonged to which sandbox.

Now users can choose the host port up front when creating a sandbox. That makes it easier to say, for example, "Sandbox A is on port A, and Sandbox B is on port B" without extra post-creation port juggling.

The practical benefit: fewer confusing "which localhost tab is this?" moments, and more predictable local URLs for browser-based tools of host-side applications like OpenChamber or Paseo.

Safer GitHub Token Defaults

An agent working in one sandbox should only get access to the repositories needed for that sandbox, not a user's entire GitHub account. Quickstart continues to guide users toward fine-grained, per-sandbox GitHub tokens instead of broad account-wide tokens.

In v4.0.0, the GitHub token-scoping preference can be saved as part of setup. That helps make the safer behavior the normal behavior.

For delivery teams and security/compliance folks, the important point is straightforward: the agent gets less power by default.

Pinned Agent and Capability Kits

OpenCode and sandbox capabilities are now supplied through pinned kits from the shared agentic-coding-patterns repository.

This makes environments more reproducible. Instead of Quickstart falling back to installing the latest available OpenCode package from npm, the agent and its supporting configuration come from a pinned, known kit version. If the expected kit is unavailable or invalid, Quickstart fails closed instead of silently doing something different.

This is one of the most important quality improvements in the release. We are preparing to support many more agent options, all built on this work.

Better Support for Real Project Workflows

v4.0.0 also includes a large set of reliability improvements that make Quickstart smoother in daily use:

• Better session behavior for msb sandboxes, including working directory and shell consistency
• Improved Git identity and GitHub scoping behavior
• Clearer behavior when secrets are missing, expired, rotated, or unreadable
• Better support for Playwright browser downloads
• Support for workshop.cloud.gov in the balanced network host list
• Safer handling of problematic msb versions
• More reliable timing for sbx, so users attach only after the sandbox is actually ready
• Dependency and CI updates to address security advisories and reduce false positives

Individually, these are small improvements. Together, they make the tool feel less fragile and more dependable for regular use.

Why This Release Matters

Quickstart v4.0.0 is not just a technical upgrade. It makes the safe path easier to follow.

For engineers, it means faster sandbox creation, smaller and lighter OpenCode environments, fewer manual setup steps, and more predictable local development behavior.

For delivery teams, it means AI coding tools are becoming easier to evaluate, explain, and govern.

For security and compliance folks, it strengthens the story around least privilege, reproducibility, secret handling, and controlled agent execution.

For Windows users, it opens the first preview path (with the caveat that hosts must already have virtualization enabled).

And for everyone, it moves the experience closer to: install the tool, open a project, answer a few guided prompts, and start working with an AI coding agent in a safer environment.

Getting Started or Updating

The README is the main place to start: https://github.com/GSA-TTS/agentic-coding-quickstart#5-minute-quickstart

Use the README's current install commands whether you are installing Quickstart for the first time or updating an existing install. The installer picks the best available method on your machine and updates through that path.

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4.0.0 CHANGELOG (2026-10-06)

⚠ BREAKING CHANGES

• kits: acq no longer installs podman/OCI tooling by default. Users who need docker, docker compose, or rootless podman when the base image doesn't provide it must opt into the oci-engine kit with acq configure, --kit, or ACQ_EXTRA_KITS.
• kits: acq no longer performs native OpenCode npm fallback installation. OpenCode is supplied by the pinned opencode agent kit from agentic-coding-patterns v1.12.0, currently delivering OpenCode v2.0.22. If the kit is unavailable or invalid, acq fails closed instead of installing opencode-ai from npm.
• kits: existing acq sandboxes with adapter-installed podman are not migrated in place. Recreate affected sandboxes or add the oci-engine kit before relying on OCI behavior after stop/start.

Features

• acq: choose the host port per sandbox, and let --publish pin it (#526) (410f332)
• acq: export ACQ_WORKSPACE and ACQ_CLONE into the guest on both backends (#457) (e0b9a3b)
• acq: interactive acq configure UI for extra kits + token-scoping defaults (#500) (13d9d3a)
• kits: adopt pinned agent and capability kits (#474) (6a67063)
• secrets: add Windows-native DPAPI secret backend (#464) (907f404)
• windows: add acq preview install path (#463) (d6d76f4)

Bug Fixes

• acq: use sandbox workspace for github scoping (#476) (1610835)
• ci: bump js-yaml to 4.3.2 to clear a high-severity CPU-DoS advisory (#454) (3217b49)
• ci: bump smol-toml to 1.7.1 to clear an infinite-loop DoS advisory (#459) (c2291bf)
• ci: centralize markdownlint coverage (#548) (a27c31e)
• ci: pin markdownlint-cli2 once, clear GHSA-253c, unify file selection (#527) (e712685)
• ci: unblock unrelated PRs from the bash32 required-check deadlock (#513) (187aa57)
• install: keep curl | sh stdin intact and tap msb formula first (#462) (c808d74)
• install: trust the microsandbox-acq dependency before brew install (#534) (ffac0fa)
• kits: land collapsed kit stack implementation (#549) (bcd5b9c)
• msb: allow Playwright browser downloads (#477) (0c399c5)
• msb: block unsafe 0.7 migration versions (#510) (3634046)
• msb: carry every origin URL, keep the scratch private, fail closed on a copy miss (#488) (babcd49)
• msb: carry the source checkout's git identity into the --clone scratch (#443) (320d784)
• msb: follow the host resolvers and disable DNS rebind protection in the guest (#444) (d2f4bdc)
• msb: point the --clone scratch's origin at the source checkout's remote (#455) (7f48b94)
• msb: refresh ssh authorization for port publish (#446) (72a6bd5)
• msb: session parity for exec/attach/shell (cwd, terminal identity, login shell) (#427) (6261eda)
• msb: skip the recursive home chown when the image baked the agent user (#432) (d8f66a4)
• msb: thread the merged kit env onto kit lifecycle commands (#519) (2248a92)
• msb: translate kit wildcard network rules (#451) (e22bbc3)
• msb: verify post-hoc port forward listener (#530) (8ca50e1)
• msb: warn on broadened kit wildcard rules (#460) (6ded3ce)
• msb: warn when ssh-agent route is missing (#448) (3a767a4)
• sbx: emit valid setup.install shape for the git-identity mixin (#492) (8e6160c)
• sbx: raise the version floor to 0.39.0, where sbx create --env first exists (#491) (30f9ecf)
• sbx: wait for startup barrier before attach (#512) (33c83c5)
• secret: reject multiline test secret values (#447) (f2da950)
• secrets: propagate rotation across backends (#509) (9641958)