The Agent Runtime Problem

The transition from language models to agentic systems represents a fundamental shift in the computational paradigm. Where traditional software operates within deterministic boundaries, agents introduce stochastic behavior into execution contexts. The implications are significant: code generated at inference time cannot be formally verified before execution, yet must interact with stateful systems including file systems, network interfaces, and external APIs. This creates an unprecedented security surface where the threat model includes not only adversarial inputs but also the possibility of emergent misalignment between intended and actual behavior.

Current approaches to agent execution rely predominantly on containerization or process isolation. While these mechanisms provide namespace separation, they were designed for multi-tenant cloud workloads, not for containing potentially adversarial code generated by language models. The attack surface differs qualitatively: containers assume trusted code with untrusted inputs, whereas agent runtimes must assume untrusted code with access to trusted resources. This inversion requires a different isolation primitive. Ephemeral micro-VMs, instantiated per execution and destroyed upon completion, offer hardware-level isolation with sub-second cold start times. Combined with capability-based security models that grant only the minimal permissions required for each task, we can construct execution environments where the blast radius of any single failure is bounded by design.

The research implications extend beyond security into questions of trust calibration and progressive autonomy. By instrumenting sandboxed executions, we can collect empirical evidence about agent behavior across diverse contexts, enabling data-driven decisions about permission escalation. This transforms the alignment problem from a pre-deployment verification challenge into a continuous monitoring and adaptation process. The runtime layer becomes not just infrastructure but a critical component of the human-AI trust interface.

We are working on this problem. This week, we are launching a product that allows anyone to spin up their own VMs in seconds. Whether you are a human, an agent, or a MoltBot, we have got you covered.

Get in touch at hello@akshaykhepla.com