How Vercel Drives Keep Agent Workspaces Persistent

Peter Bubenik · Vercel · Oct 15, 2026 · Source

Image for Introducing Vercel Drives: persistent storage for agents

Step-by-Step Study Material

Step 1: Understand the Problem Being Solved

The Core Challenge

Agents often run complex, multi-step tasks. Consider this scenario:

Agent starts task → Works in Sandbox A → Task evolves → Needs different tools/runtime → Moves to Sandbox B

Without persistent storage:

Files created in Sandbox A are lost when moving to Sandbox B
Agent must restart work from scratch
No way to share work between multiple agents

This is the problem Vercel Drives solves.

Step 2: What Is Vercel Drives?

Simple Definition

Vercel Drives is persistent, mountable file storage that exists independently of any sandbox environment.

Key Mental Model

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│           VERCEL DRIVE                  │
│   (files live here permanently)         │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               │ mount          │ mount
               ▼                ▼
        ┌──────────┐     ┌──────────┐
        │Sandbox A │     │Sandbox B │
        │(Python)  │     │(Node.js) │
        └──────────┘     └──────────┘

The drive persists. The sandboxes are temporary.

Step 3: Core Concepts Explained

Concept 1 — Creating and Mounting a Drive

A drive is created once and mounted into a sandbox at a specific path.

Using the CLI:

# Step 1: Create or retrieve an existing drive
sandbox drives get-or-create agent-workspace

# Step 2: Create a sandbox and mount the drive at /workspace
sandbox create --mount agent-workspace:/workspace

Using the SDK:

import { Sandbox, Drive } from '@vercel/sandbox';

// Step 1: Get or create the drive
const drive = await Drive.getOrCreate({ name: 'agent-workspace' });

// Step 2: Create sandbox with the drive mounted at /workspace
const sandbox = await Sandbox.create({
  mounts: { '/workspace': drive },
});

// Step 3: Do work — this gets saved to the drive
await sandbox.runCommand('git', ['clone', repoUrl, '/workspace/repo']);

What This Means in Practice

Location	Belongs To	Persists?
`/workspace/...`	The Drive	✅ Yes
Everything else	The Sandbox	❌ No

Concept 2 — Resuming Work Across Sandboxes

Because the drive is independent, a new sandbox can mount the same drive and find everything exactly as the previous sandbox left it.

// Later run — completely new sandbox, same drive
const drive = await Drive.getOrCreate({ name: 'agent-workspace' });

const newSandbox = await Sandbox.create({
  mounts: { '/workspace': drive },
});

// The repo cloned in the previous run is still here!
await newSandbox.runCommand('ls', ['/workspace/repo']);

Key benefit: No file transfers. No rebuilding. Just mount and continue.

Concept 3 — Sharing State Across Multiple Sandboxes

Multiple agents can mount the same drive simultaneously.

Use case example:

Agent 1 builds dataset → saves to drive
        ↓
Agent 2 mounts drive (read-only) → analyzes data
Agent 3 mounts drive (read-only) → generates reports

// Agent 2 and Agent 3 mount the same drive as read-only
const sharedDrive = await Drive.getOrCreate({ name: 'dataset-drive' });

const analyzerSandbox = await Sandbox.create({
  mounts: { '/data': sharedDrive }, // read-only access
});

Why read-only?

Protects the original dataset
Multiple agents can read simultaneously without conflict
Each agent saves its own results separately

Concept 4 — Forking a Drive

Forking creates an independent copy of a drive's current state.

Original Drive (dataset)
        │
        ├──── Fork A (Agent tries Approach 1)
        │
        └──── Fork B (Agent tries Approach 2)

Key rules of forking:

Each fork starts with the original contents
Each fork is fully writable and independent
Changes in Fork A do not affect Fork B or the original
Forks do not merge back into the original

When to use forking:

Testing different data transformations in parallel
Exploring multiple solution paths without risk
Running experiments that might corrupt data

Step 4: Storage Limits — What You Need to Know

Plan	Default Storage	Maximum Available
Hobby	1 GiB	Up to 16 TiB
All others	1 TiB	Up to 16 TiB

Step 5: Summary — The Big Picture

VERCEL DRIVES — Core Ideas

1. PERSIST    → Files survive sandbox shutdowns
2. MOUNT      → Attach the same drive to any new sandbox
3. SHARE      → Multiple agents read from one drive
4. FORK       → Independent copies for parallel exploration