Organizations

An organization lets a team work out of one boxd account: machines are billed to the org instead of to individuals, and any machine can be shared so every member can SSH straight into it. One golden VM, one preview fleet, one set of long-running services — reachable by the whole team, paid for once. Each member keeps their own login. Sharing a machine is always an explicit, owner-controlled step, and boxd guarantees a clean handoff: a member’s personal agent credentials are never left readable on a machine the rest of the team can reach. See Share a VM for exactly how that works.

Organizations are set up by the boxd team. If you’re running boxd with a team and want shared billing and machines, reach out — we’ll create your org and make you its admin. From there you add and remove members yourself.

The three machine states

Inside an organization, every VM is in exactly one of three states:

State	Who can see & reach it	Who pays
Personal	You only	You
Org-billed, private	You only	The org
Shared	Every member of the org	The org

Personal is the default and behaves exactly as it does outside an org — your machine, your bill.
Org-billed, private is what boxd new creates while you’re working in an org context: the org picks up the bill, but the machine stays private to you until you choose to share it.
Shared opens the machine to the whole team — every member can connect and SSH in, and the org pays.

Promoting a machine from private to shared, and back, is a one-command toggle covered in Share a VM.

Roles

An organization has two roles:

Role	What they can do
Admin	Everything a member can, plus manage the org: invite and remove members from the console. One admin per org.
Member	Create org-billed machines, reach every shared machine in the org, and share or unshare their own machines.

“Owner” is per-machine, not a role. Whoever created a machine owns it and decides whether it’s private or shared — including the admin’s machines and every member’s. Being an admin doesn’t grant a shell on another member’s private machine; only shared machines are reachable org-wide.

Working in an org context

Your context decides which org a new machine is billed to and which machines list and connect see. By default you land in your org; switch back to personal any time.

ssh boxd.sh org list             # organizations you belong to (active one marked)
ssh boxd.sh org switch acme      # work in the "acme" org context
ssh boxd.sh org switch personal  # back to your personal context

boxd org list                    # organizations you belong to (active one marked)
boxd org switch acme             # work in the "acme" org context
boxd org switch personal         # back to your personal context

While you’re in an org context:

boxd new creates an org-billed, private machine. Add --shared to make it visible to the whole org from the moment it boots.
boxd list shows the org’s machines, shared ones first, and tags your private org-billed machines so you can tell them apart.
boxd billing reflects the org’s plan and quota, not your personal one.

ssh boxd.sh new --name=staging            # org-billed, private to you
ssh boxd.sh new --name=staging --shared   # org-billed and shared with the whole org

boxd new --name=staging                   # org-billed, private to you
boxd new --name=staging --shared          # org-billed and shared with the whole org

The same flags work inside the interactive ssh boxd.sh prompt — drop the prefix: boxd> new --name=staging --shared.

Managing members

Day-to-day org work — switching context, listing machines, sharing and unsharing — is fully scriptable from the CLI and SSH (shown above). Membership is the one piece that lives in the console: admins invite and remove members there directly, no operator ticket required.

Open the Organizations page

Go to boxd.sh/app, open the profile menu (top right), and choose Organizations — the direct route is /app/organizations. If you belong to more than one org, pick the right one in the org switcher at the top of the page. (The Organizations entry only appears while you’re in an org context.)

Invite a member

Under Invite a member, enter your teammate’s email and click Create invite. boxd emails them the invite link and copies a shareable link to your clipboard so you can send it directly. Each link is single-use and expires after 48 hours.

They join with GitHub

Your teammate opens the link and signs in with GitHub. That’s it — they’re a member, the org’s machines show up for them, and they can reach every shared VM. Pending invites are listed on the same page, where you can Copy link or Revoke them.

To remove someone, click Remove next to their name on the same page. They lose access to all org VMs immediately. Creating the org itself, and changing its plan or quota, is handled by the boxd team — reach out.

Who can reach what

Action	Personal machine	Org-billed, private	Shared
Connect / SSH in	Owner	Owner	Any member
Share / unshare	—	Owner	Owner
Counts against	Your quota	Org quota	Org quota

Next steps

Share a VM

Open a machine to your team, and the credential handoff that keeps it clean.

CLI reference

Every boxd org command and flag in one place.

​The three machine states

​Roles

​Working in an org context

​Managing members

​Who can reach what

​Next steps

Share a VM

CLI reference

The three machine states

Roles

Working in an org context

Managing members

Who can reach what

Next steps