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Snapshots are prebuilt VM environments that Tembo can use as the starting point for new sessions. Each snapshot builds a full VM disk with your selected repositories, dependencies, and skills already loaded. When a session starts, Tembo can restore from that disk instead of cloning repositories and installing dependencies from scratch. This helps sessions spin up quickly, especially for large repositories, monorepos, or projects with slow dependency installs.
Snapshots are available on paid plans. If you need access to test them, book a call with us.

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What snapshots include

Snapshots can preload the parts of your environment that usually slow down startup:
  • Repositories Tembo should clone before a session starts
  • Project dependencies, so agents do not need to install them during the session
  • Tembo managed skills, so agents have your workspace instructions available immediately
  • The VM disk state needed to restore that environment for future sessions
Snapshots are built per workspace and can target the sandbox sizes your team uses.

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Configure snapshots

Prerequisites:
  • You are on a paid plan.
  • You have workspace admin access.
  • The repositories and skills you want to preload are already connected to Tembo.
Configure custom dependencies before creating a snapshot. Snapshots capture the environment as it exists when they are built, so missing tembo.nix dependencies will not be included until you rebuild the snapshot.
To configure snapshots:
  1. Open Settings.
  2. Go to Snapshots.
  3. Select the repositories to include.
  4. Choose whether to preload dependencies and skills.
  5. Select one or more sandbox sizes to build.
  6. Choose a build schedule.
  7. Save your changes.
Tembo uses the latest successful snapshot for matching new sessions.

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Setup script

Use the setup script to add project-specific tooling, dependencies, or other environment setup to your snapshot. Tembo runs the script while the snapshot is being built, after all selected repositories have been cloned to disk. The script has access to all environment variables configured in Settings > Sandbox, including secrets your setup commands need. Anything the script installs or writes to disk becomes part of the snapshot and is available to sessions that start from it.

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Sizes and schedules

You can build snapshots for any number of sandbox sizes. For example, you can keep a small snapshot ready for routine tasks and a larger snapshot ready for heavier builds or test suites. You can also build snapshots on a schedule. Scheduled builds keep repositories, dependencies, and skills up to date, so new sessions start from a recent environment instead of a stale one.

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When to use snapshots

Use snapshots when your sessions spend meaningful time on environment setup:
  • Large repositories or monorepos
  • Slow package installs
  • Build systems with expensive setup steps
  • Teams that run frequent Tembo sessions against the same repositories
  • Workspaces that rely on managed skills for agent behavior
If your project already starts quickly, you may not need snapshots. They are most useful when setup time is a consistent part of your session runtime.