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Environment is the reusable execution substrate definition for a session. The current runtime keeps environments deliberately small and explicit.

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Why environments exist

An environment answers:
  • where does this session execute
  • what sandbox posture applies
  • what default workspace mounts should exist
The important design rule is:
  • a session references an environment
  • a session does not embed the whole environment definition
That allows many sessions to reuse one environment definition.

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Current shape

The current environment contract includes:
  • id
  • name
  • kind: "local"
  • sandbox
  • workspaceMountDefaults
  • createdAt
  • updatedAt
The default local environment currently carries:
  • workspace access mode
  • network access mode
  • package policy
  • default mount paths for workspace and runtime directories

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Current implementation

Today openboa ships only:
  • kind: "local"
This is intentional. The current frontier is to stabilize the public contract before adding cloud containers or remote executors.

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Storage

Reusable environment definitions live under: 
.openboa/environments/<environment-id>.json
During setup, openboa seeds:
  • local-default
That means sessions can be created without a separate environment bootstrap step.

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Session relationship

A session stores:
  • environmentId
At runtime:
  1. the session is loaded
  2. the environment definition is loaded
  3. resources are provisioned against that environment
  4. the harness runs
This keeps the session small and the environment reusable.

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What does not belong here

The environment is not:
  • the agent definition
  • the provider model choice
  • a full session snapshot
  • a chat room
  • a work item
It is only the execution substrate.

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Future shape

This contract is intentionally open to later additions such as:
  • remote containers
  • cloud workers
  • richer network policy
  • package/image pinning
  • vault-aware provisioning
Those can all evolve without changing the session-first public runtime model.