What are Sessions?
A Session is a named, persistent terminal environment that preserves your terminal state. Sessions allow you to:- Detach and reattach: Disconnect and reconnect later — from the dashboard or the CLI — to find your terminal exactly as you left it
- Run persistent processes: Keep long-running processes (servers, watchers, builds) running while disconnected
- Access anywhere: Connect to sessions from the web dashboard or your local terminal with the Devbox CLI
Sessions vs. Regular Terminals
Creating Sessions
From the Dashboard
- Navigate to your Devbox in the Namespace dashboard
- In the left sidebar, click New session under the Sessions section
- A new session is created with a randomly generated name and you’re automatically connected
From a Spec File
Sessions can also be defined in a spec file so they are created automatically when the Devbox starts.Managing Sessions
Viewing Sessions
All active sessions are displayed in the left sidebar of the Devbox dashboard.Connecting to a Session
From the Dashboard: Click on any session in the sidebar to connect to it. Connecting to a session takes exclusive control — if another browser tab was connected to that session, it will be detached. From the CLI: Connect to a named session from your local terminal:Deleting Sessions
Hover over a session in the sidebar and click the close button to delete it. This terminates any running processes in that session.Use Cases
Development Servers
Run your dev server in a session. The server keeps running when you close your browser, and all logs are available when you reconnect.Multiple Workstreams
Create separate sessions for different tasks: a dev server, test runner, and general shell. Switch between them instantly without losing context.Long-Running Tasks
Start a build or test suite in a session, then disconnect and check the results later. For non-interactive runs you don’t need to attach to,devbox exec -d starts a command detached and devbox logs collects its output.
Next Steps
Remote Development → Connect to your Devbox via SSH, VS Code, Cursor, Zed, or JetBrains. Managing Devboxes → Lifecycle operations, machine sizes, workspace defaults, and monitoring. Executing Commands → Run commands in a Devbox withdevbox exec and read their output with devbox logs.
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