# QM on a MicroVM: YC's Multiplayer Work Agent

> YC's multiplayer work agent (QM) on a Firecracker microVM — org UI, memory, sandboxes. Pro plan, BYOK, 30-day money-back.

- Published: 2026-08-03 · Updated: 2026-08-03 · jurniti
- Canonical: https://www.jurniti.com/blog/qm-on-a-microvm

QM showed up in public with a YC stamp and a deploy story that still assumes you are an operator.

`qm init --target docker|fly|aws`. Digest-pinned images. Postgres. Email one-time links via Resend or SMTP. That is a real product for teams who already own cloud accounts and an ops weekend. It is not "lunchtime for my org."

## What QM actually is

Not another single-user coding CLI. **Multiplayer agent harness for work** — org web UI, per-scope memory and files, keychain, crons, sandboxes that drive Pi / OpenCode / Codex / Claude Code underneath.

That is closer to Paperclip or a small internal platform than to `claude` in a terminal. The surface is a browser. The state is a database. The agent needs a place to run tools that is not "whatever process happened to start the UI."

## The gap open source leaves open

Self-hosting QM means you still have to:

- Stand up Postgres that survives restarts  
- Pull and pin the service images  
- Expose the web UI safely  
- Wire sign-in email (or an identity proxy)  
- Keep the box up when your laptop closes  

None of that is QM's fault. It is the distance between **open source** and **running for your team by lunch**.

## What a microVM changes

jurniti collapses that path into one checkout:

- A **Firecracker microVM** per tenant — hardware isolation, not a shared Docker neighbor  
- The **full QM stack** pre-baked (core + web-ui + Postgres bind-mounted on the persist disk)  
- A **public TLS portal** with auto sign-in through the jurniti identity bridge (no Resend key to babysit)  
- **BYOK** for the models QM drives — keys stay in the guest  

The commercial page that owns buying intent is the [QM landing](/qm). This post is the informational twin: what QM is, and why the self-deploy path is a tax for most teams.

## Availability note

As of the first bake, **new QM purchases stay gated**. QM's product value is the sandbox path for agent tools; that substrate is not yet something we run inside the guest. The harness is registered, the rootfs bakes, the portal path is real — sellability waits on sandboxes that work. Every other harness on the platform is unaffected.

When the gate opens, checkout sells **Pro** ($49/mo floor) because the multi-container stack needs more than Starter's 2 GiB. **30-day money-back** on first purchase. No free trial.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is QM?

QM (github.com/yc-software/qm) is YC's open-source multiplayer agent harness for work — an org-level web UI that drives coding agents (Pi, OpenCode, Codex, Claude Code) with per-scope memory, files, keychain, crons, and sandboxes.

### Can I run QM without Fly or AWS myself?

Yes. jurniti provisions a Firecracker microVM with the full QM stack (core, web UI, Postgres) pre-baked. You get a public TLS portal and persistent disk without wiring docker compose or a cloud account.

### How does sign-in work?

Upstream's self-deploy path usually needs Resend/SMTP for one-time email links. On jurniti the portal identity bridge mints QM's signed identity from your jurniti session, so Open QM auto-signs-in without an email broker.

### Why Pro, not Starter?

QM runs dockerd, Postgres, and multiple Node containers. Starter is 2 GiB; the harness floor is 4 GiB, so checkout sells the Pro plan ($49/mo) that can actually boot the stack.

### Is QM available to buy today?

The harness is registered and baked, but new purchases stay gated until QM's agent sandboxes have a substrate that runs cleanly inside the microVM. Watch the changelog; every other harness is unaffected.