Ephemeral environments

Create preview, test and development environments that start in seconds and leave nothing behind when you delete them. Each environment is a microVM, or a group of microVMs, with its own kernel, file system and network interfaces.

This is a good fit when you want to:

• Start a preview environment for every pull request and delete it on merge.
• Give each test run a clean machine instead of a shared, long-lived one.
• Hand developers a full Linux machine for a few hours without giving them a server.

How it works

Flintlock creates microVMs from container images. The kernel and root volume of a microVM are images in a registry, pulled by containerd. So you build and version environments the same way you build and version containers.

You can choose how to drive Flintlock:

• API and CLI. Call Flintlock’s gRPC API from your own tools, or use a CLI such as hammertime or fl.
• Kubernetes resources. microvm-operator adds Microvm, MicrovmReplicaSet and MicrovmDeployment resources, so you can manage environments with kubectl or GitOps.
• Many hosts. Brigade speaks the Flintlock API and decides which host runs each microVM. Point your tools at Brigade instead of at one Flintlock host.
• Instant start. Battery keeps a warm pool of pre-booted microVMs, so you can claim a running environment without waiting for it to boot.