Open Sandbox

Folders in which you do mathematical research with AI agents. This repository holds two editions:

• the Baby Sandbox, to start with: two agents, one shared notebook and Julia, running in ten minutes;
• the Open Sandbox, for real projects: a referee for every result, a certificate for every computation, the computer algebra system of your choice, Lean for formal proofs, and collabs with other mathematicians' sandboxes.

Folder or file	What it is
baby-sandbox/	The Baby Sandbox. Copy it, and read its README.md.
open-sandbox/	The Open Sandbox. Copy it to where your sandbox will live, and read its README.md: about 15 minutes to start.
workshop/	Example fittings: optional roles, skills and tools for an Open Sandbox, each installed in one line. Now: admin/, a role that keeps the sandbox running, and architect/, a role that improves how the agents work together.
tests/	The Open Sandbox's test suite.
logo/	The logo: ink proves, `\textcolor{#eb6834}{\textsf{orange}}` computes, `\textcolor{#2a78d6}{\textsf{blue}}` verifies.
MANIFEST.sha256	The SHA-256 of every other file here.

Start

1. Get this repository into a folder such as open-sandbox-dist: git clone https://git.ista.ac.at/ai-for-mathematics/open-sandbox.git open-sandbox-dist, or download it from that page.
2. New to working with AI agents? Start with the Baby Sandbox:

   cp -R open-sandbox-dist/baby-sandbox ~/my-playground
   

   Then follow ~/my-playground/README.md. Come back to the next step when you want a referee, certificates, Lean or collabs.
3. The Open Sandbox: copy it to where it will live, and see what you have installed:

   cp -R open-sandbox-dist/open-sandbox ~/my-sandbox
   cd ~/my-sandbox && python3 tools/check.py
   

   Then follow ~/my-sandbox/README.md, "Start in 15 minutes".
4. To work with others: ~/my-sandbox/FIRST-COLLAB.md takes two people through their first collab, step by step. sh tools/rehearse_collab.sh, run in the sandbox, plays a whole collab on your own computer first, with no server and no keys.
5. Optional roles: python3 open-sandbox-dist/workshop/install.py admin ~/my-sandbox shows what it would add, and the same with --approved adds it; likewise architect.

Check the files and run the tests

• The files: in this folder, sha256sum -c MANIFEST.sha256 (on macOS, shasum -a 256 -c MANIFEST.sha256).
• The tests: python3 tests/test_open_sandbox.py /tmp/open-sandbox-test, with a folder that does not exist yet. They need git 2.32 or later, Python 3.8 or later and PARI/GP; checks that need Julia and OSCAR, Lean, or bubblewrap are skipped without them (the file's first lines say how to include them).

Where it runs

Linux and macOS. On Windows, inside WSL2 or a Linux virtual machine. It also runs in a project of Open Math OS, a cloud workspace for mathematical research, with nothing installed on your own computer; it has been tested there, collabs included.

Licences

MIT for everything that runs (LICENSE), and CC BY 4.0 for everything written to be read (LICENSE-CC-BY-4.0). Copyright © 2026 Tamás Hausel and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA).