Running Containers Inside the Sandbox (dind / sock)

Let an AI agent build images and run containers inside the sandbox: dind uses an independent runtime inside the container, while sock operates the host Docker directly. Both modes add --privileged; see Security for the risks and Container Modes for the comparison.

dind: independent runtime inside the container (recommended)

manyoyo run -m dind -x /bin/bash

Use Podman directly once inside:

podman ps -a
podman run hello-world
podman build -t myimage .

To use Docker, start dockerd manually first:

nohup dockerd > /var/log/dockerd.log 2>&1 &
sleep 10
docker ps -a

Nested images and containers live inside the outer container, so removing it removes them all. Mount any important data into the outer container.

Save as a run profile

// ~/.manyoyo/manyoyo.json
{
    "runs": {
        "dind": {
            "containerName": "my-dind",
            "containerMode": "dind",
            "envFile": ["/abs/path/anthropic_claudecode.env"],
            "yolo": "c"
        }
    }
}

manyoyo run -r dind

Example: let the agent edit a Dockerfile and verify it

manyoyo run -r dind
# Ask the agent to write a Dockerfile, then build and run it:
podman build -t myapp:test .
podman run --rm myapp:test npm test

After exiting, use manyoyo run -n my-dind -x /bin/bash to return to the same container and check podman ps -a and podman images.

sock: mount the host Docker socket

manyoyo run -m sock -x /bin/bash
docker ps

sock mounts /var/run/docker.sock and sets DOCKER_HOST and CONTAINER_HOST. The container sees the host's containers and images, and its actions take effect on the host directly. Use it only for fully trusted tasks.

Troubleshooting

dockerd fails to start: check /var/log/dockerd.log, or run dockerd --debug in the foreground; remove a stale /var/run/docker.sock and retry.

Podman permission errors: run podman info to check storage and namespaces; if needed, podman system reset (this wipes nested containers and images).

Image pull fails: confirm network access inside the container first; for a proxy, pass HTTP_PROXY / HTTPS_PROXY through env, or configure a mirror in /etc/containers/registries.conf.

Out of space: check usage with podman system df, clean up with podman system prune -a --volumes.

Notes

• Nested containers have some performance overhead, and the separate image store uses extra disk.
• The outer container's resource limits also limit nested containers.
• Nested container ports must be published to the outer container before they are reachable from the host.
• Not recommended for production; use a dedicated runtime or a daemonless tool such as Kaniko for production builds.

Next steps

• Container Modes
• Security
• Runtime Errors