blaxel-shell

blaxel-shell

Interactive shell over repos in a Mesa org running inside a Blaxel sandbox.

Spins up a Blaxel sandbox, installs the Mesa CLI via the install script, mounts your org's repos via FUSE, and drops you into a minimal shell.

Quick start

npm install

# Create a .env in this directory (gitignored)
cp .env.example .env

# Now populate your .env file with the required values

# Run
npm start

Creating Blaxel sandbox...
Installing Mesa CLI...
Mounting your-org...
Connected to your-org. Type "exit" or Ctrl+C to quit.

$ ls
repo-one  repo-two  repo-three
$ exit
Cleaning up sandbox...
Bye!

How it works

1. Creates a Blaxel sandbox (Alpine-based, runs as root)
2. Installs system dependencies and the Mesa CLI via the install script (mesa.dev/install.sh), which detects Alpine and adds the correct APK repository
   • Uses gcompat instead of libc6-compat to avoid gRPC deadlocks
3. Mints a short-lived access token from your API key (outside the sandbox) and starts the Mesa FUSE daemon with it via MESA_ORG and MESA_API_KEY — your raw API key never enters the sandbox
4. Drops you into a minimal REPL at the mount path

Environment variables

Variable	Description
MESA_ORG	Your Mesa organization slug
MESA_API_KEY	Mesa API key with at least write scope (get one here) — the short-lived token minted for the sandbox cannot exceed the key's scopes
BL_API_KEY	Blaxel API key
BL_WORKSPACE	Blaxel workspace name (read automatically by the Blaxel SDK)

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18
• Mesa account with an API key
• Blaxel account with an API key and workspace