Agent Anatomy

An Analogy

Imagine a new colleague, Joseph, joins your team. Joseph is an experienced finance expert. To help him work effectively, the team sets up a computer for him with pre-installed software like web browsers and spreadsheets. Joseph has extensive experience using these tools and specialized knowledge in finance. Your team lead assigns Joseph a work plan to help grow the business.

This scenario has many parallels with a VM0 Agent:

The Agent Provider (Claude Code) is a capable worker, and Skills give the agent specialized expertise in specific domains, just like the finance expertise Joseph has. The Sandbox is like Joseph's computer with pre-installed software. And Instruction is the work plan that tells the agent what to do.

Sandbox

The Sandbox provides the runtime environment for your agent. It includes:

• The Agent Provider (Claude Code)
• System tools and dependencies
• Base configuration

VM0 prepares your sandbox with the appropriate runtime environment for your provider. Use the apps field to add pre-installed tools like GitHub CLI (e.g., apps: [github]).

Skills & Instructions

When you run an agent, VM0 packages your skills and instructions and mounts them into the sandbox at ~/.claude.

• Instruction - Defines what the agent should do (via AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md)
• Skills - Reusable packages that add domain-specific capabilities, like Firecrawl, Notion, or Create Slides