Lakebed

History

The lakebed package was first published to npm on 20 May 2026. In late May Browne said a large early-access test of "my new cloud" had gone "unbelievably well", and a free public alpha followed. Releases have come quickly since, numbered 0.0.x (version 0.0.39 as of October 2026). The npm package is MIT-licensed.

Lakebed is a separate product from T3 Code, Browne's app for running coding agents, though he has said that "the vast majority" of Lakebed was written using T3 Code. Early users have put up capsules ranging from games (versions of Doom, Tetris and 2048) to a simple CRM and an audio guest book.

How it works

A new app starts with one command, npx lakebed new my-app; it needs Node.js 22.18 or later but no account or global install. Each capsule has a fixed layout:

• server/index.ts: the data schema, queries, mutations, actions and HTTP endpoints (for webhooks and other outside calls);
• client/index.tsx: the user interface, written with Preact, a small alternative to React;
• shared/: plain TypeScript used by both sides.

The platform supplies the rest:

• Database: a built-in database with declared indexes and paging. Every handler runs in a transaction, and the client's useQuery hook subscribes to results, so pages update live.
• Sign-in: visitors get a guest session that can be upgraded to a Google account, keeping their data. Sign-in goes through Lakebed Auth, a broker at auth.lakebed.dev, so there is nothing to configure.
• File storage: uploads with public or private objects, and a dashboard where the app's owner can review and remove what users uploaded.
• Styling: Tailwind CSS classes, compiled automatically with no build setup.
• Hosting: npx lakebed deploy puts the app online at a *.lakebed.app address, even without an account. Unclaimed deploys expire; claiming one keeps it and unlocks server secrets and outbound web requests. The documentation describes paid ("boosted") plans that can add a custom domain, though the start guide calls Lakebed free-only.

Built for AI agents

The homepage tells agents to read lakebed.dev/agents.md, a short start guide, before running anything. The documentation is published as plain Markdown pages that each fit in a single fetch, with an llms.txt index. Agents can inspect a running app from the terminal with lakebed db dump, lakebed logs and lakebed inspect; errors come back with a machine-readable code and a suggested fix, and long-running commands use exit codes an agent can loop on. Browne has described adding a feature without announcing it and finding the next morning that another developer's agent had discovered it and shipped an app on top of it.

Limits

The alpha is deliberately narrow. A capsule has one server entry and one client entry, its code cannot install npm packages or use Node.js built-ins, and local data resets when the development server restarts. Free deploys allow 10,000 requests and 1,000 mutations a day, 1 MiB of stored data, and files up to 5 MiB, with 100 MiB of file storage per developer. There is no built-in scheduler; periodic jobs call a protected endpoint from outside.