The VMs Powering Mobile Agents (Instinct, Claude Code)

Mobile AI agents like Claude Code are shifting from local computers to run on cloud-based virtual machines, enabling smartphone access. Claude Code runs in a Firecracker microVM with a custom Rust-based operating system, using a 324 MB Bun harness to execute tool calls while maintaining security through read-only shared disks, restricted system capabilities, and OAuth authentication. The VM architecture separates user data on persistent writable storage from platform code on read-only disks, with inference routed through a monitored egress gateway, and the compute can be reclaimed when idle while preserving the conversation state.