Arete documentation
What is a sandbox?
For the complete documentation index optimized for AI agents, see llms.txt or llms-full.txt. A markdown version of this page is available by appending.mdto the URL or sendingAccept: text/markdown.
For AI agents: the documentation index is at llms.txt (full corpus: llms-full.txt). A markdown source for this page is /sandboxes/overview.md.
A sandbox is a hosted Solana wallet that an agent can use but never holds the key to. Think of it as a financial virtual machine: the agent runs inside it, can do anything the machine allows, and nothing it doesn’t.
You, the owner, create the sandbox, fund it, decide which programs it may use and sign those rules once. The agent asks Arete to run actions. Arete builds each transaction, checks it against your rules, signs it and sends it.
The four parts
Section titled “The four parts”| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Wallet | A Solana wallet Arete holds the key for. You fund it; the agent spends from it. |
| Rules | A document you sign: the programs the agent may use, their instructions, spend limits and where funds may go. |
| Reads | What the agent can see: the sandbox’s state, plus program reads and live views for the programs in its rules. |
| History | Every action the agent asked for, landed or refused, with decoded instructions, events and balance changes. |
The boundary is the wallet
Section titled “The boundary is the wallet”Whatever you send into the sandbox is the agent’s to use within the rules: it may trade it, and it may lose it. The rules make sure the agent uses only the programs you turned on, in the ways they allow, and that funds cannot leave to anywhere you cannot recover them from.
The rules do not judge whether a trade is a good one. Price, slippage within what you allowed and losses are the agent’s to manage. See the security model for exactly what is and isn’t enforced.
One set of rules for writes and reads
Section titled “One set of rules for writes and reads”Most agent wallets only guard what an agent can send. A sandbox’s rules also decide what it can see. The programs in the rules are the programs the agent can call, and also the programs whose accounts it can read and whose live views it can follow through Arete. An agent can’t act on a program that isn’t in the sandbox, and it can’t read one through Arete either.
That keeps an agent focused on the venues you chose, and stops it from wandering into protocols you never meant it to touch.
Who does what
Section titled “Who does what”| You, the owner | Your agent |
|---|---|
| Create and fund the sandbox | Reads its status, rules, holdings and history |
| Choose programs, limits and allowed addresses | Previews an action to see whether it passes |
| Sign the rules | Runs actions: program instructions, withdraws |
| Grant agents access and choose their actions | Corrects a refused request from its code and hint |
| Pause the sandbox or revoke an agent’s access | Never sees a key, a transaction to sign or an RPC |
Owner operations (rules, grants, pause, revoke) happen on the Sandboxes page of the dashboard. No agent tool can reach them.