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Use snapshots when expensive setup should become a durable starting point for many later machines. Each Machine.create(snapshot_id=...) call starts a fresh independent machine from the same snapshot, and the snapshot remains available until deleted.

Create a reusable snapshot

Spawn from the snapshot

Manage reusable snapshots

Pause, snapshot, or fork

Behavior

  • Snapshots include VM memory and mutable rootfs state.
  • Shared volumes remain external durable storage and are remounted on compatible restore; they are not copied into the snapshot.
  • Restore requires compatible runtime hosts, kernels, and snapshot artifacts. A paused machine alias can resume only from its own latest snapshot lineage; reusable snapshots are restored with Machine.create(snapshot_id=...) and do not mutate the source machine.
  • Delete removes reusable snapshot metadata and makes its artifact eligible for cleanup when no active reusable snapshot references it.