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Support atomic delete-by-identity for sandboxes (no compare-and-delete primitive today) #3210
OpenShell's sandbox delete API takes only a mutable sandbox name (openshell sandbox delete -g <gateway> <sandbox-name>). There is no way for a client to bind a delete request to a specific sandbox's immutable identity (internal ID / resource version) and have OpenShell refuse the delete if the name now resolves to a different sandbox.
This means any client-side "read identity, then delete by name" pattern has an unavoidable TOCTOU race: another OpenShell client can delete the sandbox and create a replacement under the same name between the client's identity read and OpenShell processing the delete. No amount of re-checking identity immediately before issuing the delete closes this window, because the check and the delete are not atomic.
Impact
We hit this concretely in NVIDIA/NemoClaw#10863 / NVIDIA/NemoClaw#10867: nemoclaw destroy needed a safe way to clean up a sandbox left "retained" after an interrupted onboarding. Even with a durable identity fingerprint recorded for the retained sandbox, we could not safely automate the delete, because OpenShell could not guarantee the name still pointed at the same sandbox at the moment of deletion. The fix had to make deletion of a live retained sandbox permanently fail-closed (always require a human to run the delete manually after out-of-band identity confirmation), which is a worse operator experience than a race-free automatic cleanup would be.
Proposed Design
Add an atomic delete-by-identity primitive, e.g. a resource_version / immutable ID precondition on the delete RPC (compare-and-delete semantics): the delete succeeds only if the sandbox at that name still has the identity/resource-version the caller expects, and otherwise fails with a distinguishable "identity mismatch" error rather than deleting an unexpected sandbox.
This is related to #3050 (unifying sandbox references across gateway RPCs) — a canonical sandbox reference type that includes an immutable ID could be a natural carrier for this precondition, but #3050's stated scope does not currently call out atomic/conditional delete semantics, so filing this separately to track the specific capability gap.
Acceptance Criteria
Sandbox delete RPC accepts an optional identity/resource-version precondition.
Delete fails with a distinguishable error (not a silent no-op or wrong-sandbox deletion) when the precondition does not match the current sandbox at that name.
This issue has had no activity for 14 days and is now marked stale. It may be closed in 7 days if there is no further activity. Comment or remove the state:stale label to keep it open.
I hit the same problem in my orchestration. If a sandbox becomes unhealthy, I recreate it under the same name. A delayed cleanup or retry can then end up deleting the replacement instead of the original sandbox.
The main change in the API is that DeleteSandboxRequest gets an (optional) expected_sandbox_id. The gateway only deletes the sandbox if the name still resolves to that ID. If it doesn’t, it returns FAILED_PRECONDITION (SANDBOX_IDENTITY_MISMATCH) and leaves the sandbox untouched. Requests that don’t set the field keep the current behavior.
I also added CLI support with openshell sandbox delete --id <ID> and NAME --expected-id <ID>.
The change is supported in the Rust, Python, and TypeScript SDKs, while Go gets the regenerated raw field. Python session cleanup, sandbox create --no-keep cleanup, and TUI deletes now all pass the ID of the sandbox they intend to delete.
Happy to adjust the design if we prefer a different approach.
This issue has had no activity for 14 days and is now marked stale. It may be closed in 14 days if there is no further activity. Comment or remove the state:stale label to keep it open.
Activity
fix(sandbox): keep retained destroy fail closed (#10867)
github-actions commentedon Sep 21, 2026
This issue has had no activity for 14 days and is now marked stale. It may be closed in 7 days if there is no further activity. Comment or remove the state:stale label to keep it open.
feat(cli): delete a sandbox by ID with sandbox delete --id
rodrigosetti commentedon Oct 1, 2026
I hit the same problem in my orchestration. If a sandbox becomes unhealthy, I recreate it under the same name. A delayed cleanup or retry can then end up deleting the replacement instead of the original sandbox.
I have a fix ready on my fork:
rodrigosetti#1
The main change in the API is that
DeleteSandboxRequestgets an (optional)expected_sandbox_id. The gateway only deletes the sandbox if the name still resolves to that ID. If it doesn’t, it returnsFAILED_PRECONDITION(SANDBOX_IDENTITY_MISMATCH) and leaves the sandbox untouched. Requests that don’t set the field keep the current behavior.I also added CLI support with
openshell sandbox delete --id <ID>andNAME --expected-id <ID>.The change is supported in the Rust, Python, and TypeScript SDKs, while Go gets the regenerated raw field. Python session cleanup,
sandbox create --no-keepcleanup, and TUI deletes now all pass the ID of the sandbox they intend to delete.Happy to adjust the design if we prefer a different approach.
I’ve requested a vouch: #4083
fix(sandbox): allow verified retained sandbox destruction (#12893)
github-actions commentedon Oct 17, 2026
This issue has had no activity for 14 days and is now marked stale. It may be closed in 14 days if there is no further activity. Comment or remove the state:stale label to keep it open.
antsok commentedon Oct 23, 2026
I would love to see some progress on this