Filip Balucha, Stavros, and Vivek from Terminal Use launched their Y Combinator Winter 2026 company on Hacker News on March 9, 2026, receiving 80 points. The platform provides infrastructure for deploying AI agents that work in sandboxed environments, treating filesystems as first-class primitives separate from task lifecycles. The team positions Terminal Use as "Vercel for filesystem-based agents," targeting developers who need to manage agent packaging, sandboxing, state persistence, and file transfers.
Decouples Filesystem Storage from Agent Execution
Terminal Use's core architectural innovation separates filesystem management from the sandbox lifecycle. Workspaces can persist across conversation turns, be shared between different agents, or allow file uploads and downloads independent of whether the sandbox is active. The Filesystem SDK provides presigned URLs for direct user file transfers without proxying through the backend. According to the team, this separation means "you can deploy bug fixes and auto-migrate all tasks to new deployment" while handling breaking changes by keeping existing tasks on old versions and routing new tasks to updated deployments.
Supports Multiple Agent SDKs with Lifecycle Endpoints
Developers package agents from repositories using a config.yaml file and Dockerfile, then deploy via CLI. The platform defines three endpoint lifecycles: on_create, on_event, and on_cancel, which track conversation stages. Terminal Use provides out-of-box adapters for Claude Agent SDK and Codex SDK, with custom harness support through Vercel AI SDK v6 compatible message types. The frontend integrates with Vercel AI SDK's provider and messages module for streaming and persistence.
Provides Git-Based Environments and Testing Workflows
The platform includes CLI deployments with preview and production environments, logs, rollback capabilities, and Git-based environment targeting. The config.yaml file contains resource specifications and build context, making the system CI/CD friendly. For testing, the team describes their approach: "we make markdown files with user scenarios we'd like to test, and then ask Claude Code to impersonate our users and chat with our deployed agent." Multi-filesystem mounts with configurable paths and read/write modes are currently in development.
Roadmap Includes Lower-Level Sandbox APIs
While preview URLs remain on the roadmap, the platform currently lacks lower-level sandbox.exec(...) style APIs that some developers expect from container orchestration platforms. The comparison to Replicate's Cog and Vercel suggests Terminal Use targets developers who expect modern deployment platform experiences. A demo video demonstrates the complete workflow from packaging through deployment and filesystem management.
Key Takeaways
- Terminal Use separates filesystem storage from agent execution, allowing workspaces to persist across turns and be shared between agents
- The Filesystem SDK provides presigned URLs for direct file uploads/downloads without backend proxying
- Platform supports Claude Agent SDK and Codex SDK out-of-box, with custom harness support via Vercel AI SDK v6 message types
- Deployment includes Git-based preview/production environments, automatic task migration for non-breaking changes, and version pinning for breaking updates
- Created by YC W26 batch, positioning as "Vercel for filesystem-based agents" with CLI-driven workflows