Lifo

Lifo is an open-source, Linux-like operating system written in TypeScript that runs in a browser tab, a Node.js process or a serverless function. It is built by the team behind RapidNative and is listed at version 0.10.0 alpha on the homepage. It provides a shell, Unix commands, a Node.js compatibility layer and a package manager without WASM, an emulator or native dependencies.

What It Is

Lifo is a clean-room reimplementation of Unix-style OS and Node.js APIs in TypeScript, not a Linux distribution or a VM. A headless Sandbox API exposes a filesystem, a shell and Node.js as async calls, so an app, AI agent or terminal can run commands, write files and execute scripts. The project states it is aimed at sandboxing AI-generated code, browser IDEs, previews and teaching.

How It Works

The stack consists of a bash-like shell with pipes, redirection, globbing, subshells and job control, and 60+ commands such as ls, grep, sed, awk, tar, git and curl. A virtual filesystem persists to IndexedDB so sessions survive reloads, and a virtual network covers ports, TCP and DNS. The Node.js layer covers modules like http, fs, net, child_process, streams and crypto, and npm/npx install from the real registry. A service worker turns in-VM ports into live previews, with a fallback for browsers with incomplete service-worker support.

Real Stacks and Tradeoffs

The homepage shows Vite with React, Express, Postgres via PGlite, Supabase (tinbase), and Expo projects running unmodified in the tab. The project documents that it offers a compatibility subset of Node, does not run native Linux binaries, and that its isolation is JS-level, not a security boundary. Benchmarks published by the project report roughly 0.5 ms cold start in Node and about 27 ms in a browser tab, measured against WebContainers in headless Chromium.

Current Status

The site marks the release as alpha. A roadmap mentions a Node binary that isolates VMs on the host and tunnelling to replace Docker for dev sandboxes.