ephemeral-ci-environmentlisted

# Ephemeral CI / test environment (Box) Use this when you need a **clean, throwaway environment** to test a repo, run a CI job, or reproduce a bug — identical every time, with nothing left behind. Every run starts from a fresh VM with all toolchains preinstalled, so there's no "works on my machine" drift. ## Why Box - **Pristine + reproducible** — fresh VM per run; no leftover state. - **Batteries included** — Docker + Node/Python/Go/Rust/Java/etc. already there; repo auto-clones in. - **Cheap per run** — per-second billing; a test run costs cents, and you `box delete` after. ## Prereqs `curl -fsSL https://box.ascii.dev/install | sh`, then `box login "$BOX_API_KEY" --json`. (Select the repo to auto-clone in the dashboard, or clone it in setup.) ## Recipe ```bash box_id="$(box new --json | jq -r 'select(.event == "ready") | .id')" trap 'box delete "$box_id" --json' EXIT box ssh "$box_id" -- "cd /project && npm ci && npm test" box ssh "$box_id" -- "cat /project/junit.xml" > junit.xml # pull results back ``` ## Limits EU-only; 100 active VMs soft cap. For thousands of <500 ms parallel CI shards, dedicated CI runners scale further; Box is best for full-machine, Docker-capable, reproducible runs.