Cloud sandboxes for coding agents, with the pull request as the interface
Hoplite is a cloud coding-agent platform for starting, supervising, and reviewing work in GitHub-backed repositories.
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Reviewed
Hoplite gives coding agents an isolated cloud workspace connected to a GitHub-backed repository, rather than running them in a local terminal. A user starts or hands off a task, the agent works in its own sandbox, and the output is a pull request that a human reviews, rather than direct commits or an open-ended chat session. The platform is designed around this review step: agents can run tests, validate a web interface in a managed preview environment, and report back verification evidence alongside the code change.
Tasks can originate from several entry points. The MCP server (an OAuth-protected streamable HTTP endpoint at api.hoplite.sh/mcp) lets another agent start or inspect authorized projects and threads, and a CLI, published as the @usehoplite/cli npm package or via a Homebrew formula, lets developers hand off selected local Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode sessions into Hoplite's cloud execution. Hoplite also supports "Automations": agents run on a defined schedule in a fresh sandbox each time, with published examples including triaging and fixing Sentry error reports and turning Slack threads or Linear issues into implementation tasks, each ending in a pull request for review. An OpenAPI specification and API key authentication (via X-Api-Key or Bearer tokens) are available for programmatic access.
Hoplite is aimed at software teams that want to delegate bounded coding tasks, such as bug fixes, feature implementation, or failure investigation, to an agent while keeping human review as the final checkpoint before code merges. Automations are available on every plan.
Lets users describe a task once, set a schedule, and have Hoplite run it in a fresh sandbox automatically, ending in a pull request.
Wires Sentry into Hoplite so new production errors are picked up on a schedule, reproduced with a failing test, and fixed in a pull request.
Validates agent-made code changes by running tests within the sandbox before submission.
Runs coding agents in isolated cloud execution environments tied to GitHub repositories instead of on a developer's laptop.
Provides a managed preview environment to check a running UI and validate agent changes in a browser.
Surfaces completed agent work as a pull request for human review rather than direct commits.
Provides an installable command-line client (via npm or Homebrew) to hand off local Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode sessions to Hoplite.
Publishes a machine-discoverable endpoint describing transport, authentication, and documentation metadata for MCP clients.
Exposes an OAuth-protected streamable HTTP MCP endpoint so external MCP clients can start or inspect authorized projects and threads.
Publishes a reviewed API contract with operation schemas and required permissions for programmatic access.
Allows creation of scoped API keys sent via X-Api-Key or Bearer authentication to control programmatic access.
Defines a source-control boundary, sandbox secrets handling, and tool approvals governing what a cloud coding agent can access.
Run agents yourself, free — just you, with 2x usage on OpenAI and Anthropic models. Nothing charged.
For teams putting agents on real work every day, with credits included per seat.
For organizations with custom security, infrastructure, and support requirements. Custom pricing, shaped around your deployment.
Turns coding agents into pull-request generators, with a free tier that actually lets you kick the tires.
“Hoplite runs agents in cloud sandboxes tied to GitHub, verifies with tests and previews, and ships a PR instead of a commit. The Free plan with $100 credits makes this a real pilot, not a demo.”
$99/seat, or $82.50 billed yearly, for the Pro tier. That's a real budget line, not a rounding error, and the board will ask what it replaces.
What it does well: the pull-request-as-interface model is the right instinct. Automated Test Verification and Managed Web Previews mean an agent's work gets checked before a human ever opens the diff, and Automations extends that to recurring jobs like the Sentry integration, which reproduces a production error with a failing test and opens a PR.
Two gaps worth naming. I couldn't find a changelog or docs depth beyond the OpenAPI spec and MCP endpoint, so I can't judge shipping cadence. And approval gating on file edits and shell commands is described but untested by me — that's the security story I'd want to see live before rolling this past a five-person pilot.
Running agents off the laptop into isolated sandboxes with test and preview validation baked in is a sharper architecture than the obvious local-terminal alternative.
Encryption in transit and at rest plus a no-training data policy are stated plainly, but contract and cancellation terms sit behind Enterprise sales.
$100 in free credits and 5 concurrent sandboxes let a team validate value before paying, and the 14-day trial on Pro lowers the commitment bar further.
Delegating bounded coding tasks to agents while keeping PR review as the checkpoint is a genuine workflow shift, not just cheaper CI.
MCP server, CLI on npm and Homebrew, and an OpenAPI spec point to real engineering investment, though I couldn't find a public changelog to gauge cadence.
Teams already living in GitHub who want bounded coding tasks delegated to agents with a PR as the checkpoint.
Skip it if your team needs enterprise security terms locked down before a sales call.
The architecture bets everything on the pull request as the unit of trust, and that bet is correct.
“Hoplite treats the PR, not the chat window or the commit, as the interface for agent work — that's the right primitive for teams that need review to actually gate merges. The tradeoff is you're adopting a workflow shape, not just a tool, and unwinding it later means re-training a team's habits.”
The core design decision here is forcing agent output through a pull request rather than a terminal session or direct commit. That's an opinionated stance on where human judgment sits in the loop, and it matches how disciplined engineering orgs already gate risk — code review as checkpoint, not afterthought. Automated Test Verification and Managed Web Previews mean the PR arrives with evidence attached, which is a meaningfully deeper craft bar than 'agent says it works.'
The integration surface is genuinely built for programmatic teams: an OAuth-protected MCP server at api.hoplite.sh/mcp, a published OpenAPI spec, and a CLI shipped as a real npm package (@usehoplite/cli) plus a Homebrew formula. That's not a toy integration story, that's infrastructure someone intends to be depended on. If you adopt this in 2026, in three years your CI/CD and issue-triage automations are threaded through Hoplite's sandbox model, and reversing that means re-platforming every scheduled Automation you built on Sentry, Slack, or Linear triggers.
At $82.50/seat/month on Pro, this is a per-seat tax on top of whatever model spend you're already carrying, and Enterprise pricing is a blank field pending a sales call. Fine for a team testing delegation on bounded tasks; a real commitment question once agents touch production-adjacent repos daily.
Sits ahead of laptop-bound agent runners on governance, though Enterprise pricing remains a quote-only unknown against a stated $82.50/seat Pro tier.
PR-as-interface matches how senior engineering orgs already gate risk, rather than asking teams to trust an open-ended chat session.
OAuth-protected MCP server, published OpenAPI spec, and a real CLI package point to infrastructure built for programmatic teams, not just a UI.
Automations tied to Sentry, Slack, and Linear create real operational dependency that's costly to unwind after adoption.
Sandbox isolation plus test verification plus preview validation is a deeper verification chain than most agent tools ship before the PR stage.
Engineering teams that already gate merges on human review and want agents to produce evidence, not just diffs.
Avoid if your team wants agents committing directly without a PR-review chokepoint slowing throughput.
$99/seat sticker, $82.50 with annual lock-in. Read the 14-day trial clock.
“Two named numbers on the site: $99 monthly, $82.50 annual. Free tier gives real runway, but Pro math needs seat-count discipline.”
$99/seat/month, or $82.50 annual. 14-day trial included. Free tier isn't a teaser: 5 concurrent sandboxes, 2 projects, $100 credits, card on file but nothing charged. That's a real trial disguised as a free plan.
Team of 10 on Pro, annual: $82.50 × 10 × 12 = $9,900/year. Add model usage above the per-seat allowance — the site doesn't say where that ceiling sits. Year 3, with seat creep and Automations usage climbing, budget closer to $14K-16K, not $9,900.
Enterprise is quote-only. No floor price, annual agreement required per the site. That's a negotiation, not a price. Procurement can self-serve Free and Pro without a sales call — genuinely rare in this category. Enterprise still means a call, a contract, and a wait for the number.
Card-required free tier and self-serve Pro checkout mean no sales call until Enterprise.
Annual billing gets the discounted $82.50 rate; monthly stays at $99, and Enterprise requires an annual agreement with no stated exit terms.
Free and Pro both list real numbers ($0, $99/$82.50); only Enterprise requires contact.
Pull requests carrying test results give a countable unit of output, but no benchmark ties agent output to hours saved.
Per-seat cost is clear but model usage overage above the seat allowance isn't quantified anywhere I found.
Teams that can commit to annual billing and want to model cost per seat without a sales call.
Avoid if you need a firm 3-year number before signing, since usage overage above the seat allowance isn't published.
PR-as-interface is the right call, but the CLI hand-off is where it'll live or die
“Hoplite treats the pull request as the contract between agent and human, backed by test runs and preview environments instead of an agent's word. Whether it fits your day depends entirely on whether you hand off from Claude Code/Codex/OpenCode or start fresh in the sandbox.”
The core design decision here is sound: agent runs in isolation, output is a PR with tests and a preview link, human reviews like any other diff. That's closer to how code review actually works than an open-ended chat pane bolted into your editor.
The CLI (npm package, Homebrew formula) is the interesting piece — it hands off a live Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode session into cloud execution mid-task. That's a genuinely different daily habit: you're not opening a new tool, you're offloading a session you already started. Whether that hand-off preserves context cleanly or drops state at the boundary isn't something I can verify from the outside, and it's the kind of thing that either feels seamless or becomes a daily annoyance fast.
Free tier gives 2 projects and 5 concurrent 2 CPU/8 GB sandboxes — fine for kicking tires, tight for a real sprint. Automations scheduling agents into fresh sandboxes each run is a solid pattern for recurring triage work, but I'd want to see how failures in a scheduled run actually surface before trusting it unattended.
PR-plus-test-evidence workflow should hold up better past the demo than chat-based agents, assuming the sandbox hand-off is as smooth as described.
An OpenAPI spec and MCP discovery manifest read as written for people integrating the API, though I couldn't find a docs site to judge day-to-day guides.
5 concurrent sandboxes on Free and a per-seat model allowance on Pro mean heavy users will hit ceilings mid-week, not just at signup.
MCP server, API key auth, and scoped automations give programmatic teams real depth, though granular permission controls aren't spelled out anywhere I found.
GitHub-backed repos, Linear, Slack, and a CLI that hands off existing Claude Code/Codex/OpenCode sessions meet developers where they already are.
Teams already running Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode locally who want to offload bounded tasks into a supervised cloud sandbox with PR review as the gate.
You want an always-on pair-programming chat experience rather than a task-in, PR-out delegation model.
The pull request is the UI, and that's the whole pitch worth trusting.
“Hoplite hands coding tasks to a cloud sandbox and hands you back a pull request with tests and a preview attached. Whether that feels like relief or homework depends entirely on how much your team already lives in GitHub.”
First ten minutes: you're not staring at a chat window, you're watching a PR get built with test runs and a managed web preview attached. That's a genuinely different first impression than most agent tools, which just show you a transcript and ask you to trust it. Free plan gives you 5 concurrent sandboxes and 2 projects to poke at before any money moves, which is enough to see whether the review workflow clicks with how your team actually works.
The rough edge is what happens after week one. Nothing in what I looked at describes an empty-state walkthrough, a mobile app, or an error state when a sandbox fails mid-task. Everything's web and Mac only. If a PR comes back wrong at 11pm and you're on your phone, you're waiting till morning.
The learning curve is really a GitHub-review-habits curve, not a tool curve. If your team already reviews PRs like this, month three should feel like less typing, not a new discipline to learn.
Test verification and web previews attached to every PR is a real detail, but I found no description of empty states or failure messaging.
The CLI hands off existing Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode sessions, which lowers the jump from local habits to cloud execution.
Platforms listed are web and Mac only, so reviewing or approving a PR from a phone doesn't appear to be part of the design.
A card-required-but-free tier with $100 in credits and 5 sandboxes lets you actually work before paying, which beats a sales-gated trial.
Automated test verification and streaming action logs suggest care, but the approval-gating claims aren't something I could see in practice.
Teams already comfortable living inside GitHub pull requests who want bounded coding tasks delegated with test evidence attached.
Skip it if you need to review or approve agent work from a phone rather than a desk.
Pull request as the interface: fine framing, until you count what's not priced.
“Hoplite's story is coherent and the sandbox-to-PR loop is well-specified. But the seat price is only half the bill, and I don't see the other half anywhere.”
The pitch is clean: agents work in a sandbox, tests run, a PR shows up. No open-ended chat, no direct commits. That's a real design choice, not just marketing copy, and the managed preview plus test verification back it up with something concrete rather than a vibe.
What I can't square is the money. $82.50 a seat monthly, on top of whatever model usage costs once you're past Free's $100 credit and 2x allowance. Category norm for agent platforms is to hide the second number until you've built workflows around the first. Automations tying into Sentry and Linear only deepens that lock-in once it's live.
Github-only, web and Mac. No named competitor to weigh against here, so judge it on its own claims. Reasonable claims, thin backing on cost.
The GitHub-only, PR-gated sandbox model is a specific bet, though nothing in what I found stacks it against a named rival.
Work lands as standard GitHub pull requests, which helps, but Automations wired into Sentry, Slack, and Linear aren't something you just export.
OpenAPI spec, CLI on npm and Homebrew, and API key auth suggest active build-out; I couldn't find a changelog to confirm cadence.
Claims (test verification, PR-only output, approval gating) are specific and checkable, not superlative filler.
Named features like Automated Test Verification and the MCP server are concrete, but I have no outside confirmation any of it holds up under load.
Teams already living in GitHub who want agent output gated behind tests and a human PR review.
Avoid if you need to model total monthly cost before committing, since usage overage isn't priced anywhere visible.
Common questions answered by our AI research team
Hoplite Free costs $0 and includes 2× usage on OpenAI and Anthropic models, 5 concurrent 2 CPU / 8 GB cloud sessions, 2 projects, access to Luna, Terra, Sonnet 5, GLM 5.3 + Flash, and DeepSeek V4 Flash, plus $100 in credits. A card is required but nothing is charged.
Hoplite Pro costs $99 per seat per month, or $82.50 per seat monthly when billed yearly, and includes a 14-day free trial.
Hoplite integrates with GitHub for repositories and pull requests, Linear for issues, Slack for updates, and anything that speaks MCP. Inside the sandbox, agents can also install and use your project's own tooling.
Every session runs in an isolated sandbox, and code and credentials are encrypted end to end in transit and at rest. Hoplite and the model providers it connects to never train on your data, and it's never sold or shared.
No. File edits, shell commands, and pull-request actions can each be gated on your explicit approval, and everything the agent does streams live so you can step in at any point.
Hoplite provides cloud-based coding agents designed to automate software development tasks.
