Meta gives Muse users free access to cloud computing

Meta’s new Muse app provides everyone with their own free virtual machine running Ubuntu Linux. It comes pre-installed with software and allows you to run code and browse the web. Agents and humans live in a “Runtime Cell”, which is sandboxed from the rest of the system, while a “Sentinel” process monitors external actions. According to David Singleton, VP of Engineering at Meta Superintelligence Labs, the Runtime Cell “has its own root file system, separate from the host”. Since its release last week, the Muse app has already gained over 500,000 users and reached the top spot in the Apple App Store.

When an agent is given access to a physical computer rather than a simulated one, the combination of a Runtime Cell and an external Sentinel process addresses all of the problems faced by any tool for developing agents. The agent must be able to explore its environment within its task but not be able to control what it reveals externally. In my system, Claude Code, the agents also operate in a sandboxed environment, but it’s interesting that Meta is offering this for free and as standard rather than charging developers for it. This isn’t quite a fully featured development environment, though. There’s no mention of resource constraints or lifetime in the article, so it’s hard to compare this to other cloud services designed for development.