First Success (5–10 minutes)

This guide gets you to a working Morph Devbox (recommended) and your first successful command run.

Devboxes are the best fit for:

• Development: VSCode/Cursor + tmux integration for CLI agents, plus fast branching for “many workspaces”
• Prototyping: expose an interactive preview URL for a web app or API; optionally disable auto-sleep to behave like a persistent VPS
• Sharing & collaboration: share a live devbox via URL inside your Morph Cloud organization

If you want finer-grained VM control and direct snapshot manipulation for advanced use cases (e.g. RL environments or test-time scaling), see the Infrastructure primitives flow below.

1) Install the SDK (or CLI)

Follow the SDK Installation guide.

2) Set your API key

Follow API Keys and export MORPH_API_KEY.

3) Recommended: start a Devbox, run a command, expose a preview

This is the smallest “end-to-end” Devboxes flow: create a devbox, run a command, and expose an HTTP preview URL.

CLI (recommended)

# 1) Pick a template and start a devbox
morphcloud devbox template list
TEMPLATE_ID="<pick-a-template-id>"

DEVBOX_ID=$(
  morphcloud devbox start "$TEMPLATE_ID" --json | jq -r '.id'
)
echo "Devbox: $DEVBOX_ID"

# 2) Run a command in your devbox (via SSH)
morphcloud devbox ssh "$DEVBOX_ID" echo "Hello from a Morph Devbox!"

# 3) Start a tiny web server (in the background) and expose it publicly
morphcloud devbox ssh "$DEVBOX_ID" bash -lc "nohup python3 -m http.server 3000 >/tmp/http.log 2>&1 &"

morphcloud devbox expose-http "$DEVBOX_ID" --name app --port 3000

Dashboard

1. Create a devbox: https://cloud.morph.so/web/devboxes/new
2. Open it in VSCode or Cursor (one click in the Devboxes UI)
3. Start any local web server inside the devbox (e.g. python3 -m http.server 3000)
4. Use Live Preview / HTTP exposure to get a shareable URL

Tip: Share the devbox or its exposed URL with teammates inside your organization.

4) Advanced: infrastructure primitives (instances + snapshots)

This is the VM primitives path. It’s great for power users who want direct control over VMs and snapshots.

Python

from morphcloud.api import MorphCloudClient

client = MorphCloudClient()

snapshot = client.snapshots.create(
    image_id="morphvm-minimal",
    vcpus=1,
    memory=1024,
    disk_size=10000,
)

instance = client.instances.start(snapshot_id=snapshot.id)
instance.wait_until_ready()

result = instance.exec(command="echo 'Hello, Morph Cloud!'")
print(result.stdout)

instance.stop()

TypeScript

import { MorphCloudClient } from 'morphcloud';

async function main() {
  const client = new MorphCloudClient();

  const snapshot = await client.snapshots.create({
    imageId: "morphvm-minimal",
    vcpus: 1,
    memory: 1024,
    diskSize: 10000,
  });

  const instance = await client.instances.start({ snapshotId: snapshot.id });
  await instance.waitUntilReady();

  const result = await instance.exec(\"echo 'Hello, Morph Cloud!'\");
  console.log(result.stdout);

  await instance.stop();
}

main().catch(console.error);

CLI

SNAPSHOT_ID=$(
  morphcloud snapshot create --image-id morphvm-minimal --vcpus 1 --memory 1024 --disk-size 10000 --json \\
    | jq -r '.id'
)

INSTANCE_ID=$(morphcloud instance start \"$SNAPSHOT_ID\" --json | jq -r '.id')

morphcloud instance exec \"$INSTANCE_ID\" echo \"Hello, Morph Cloud!\"

morphcloud instance stop \"$INSTANCE_ID\"

Next steps

• Learn the model: Concepts → Mental model
• Devboxes (recommended): Getting started
• VM primitives: Instance Management