# Coder Coder is a **self-hosted platform for [[Cloud Development Environments (CDEs)|cloud development environments]]**, now repositioned as infrastructure for running [[AI Agents|AI coding agents]] at enterprise scale. Workspaces are defined as Terraform templates and run on your own servers or cloud, so both developers and agents get standardized, disposable, governed environments — with the code never leaving your infrastructure. The 2026 pitch has three parts: - **Coder Workspaces** — templated, self-hosted dev environments where developers and agents work side by side - **Coder Agents** — run AI coding agents (any model) inside those governed workspaces - **Coder AI Governance** — centralized model access, policy controls, audit logging, and observability of agent activity ## Why it matters Agents multiply the environment problem. One developer needs one workspace; a fleet of agents needs dozens, each sandboxed, each auditable, each disposable. Coder's bet is that the same template-driven machinery that solved "works on my machine" for humans is what enterprises will use to give agents compute without giving them the keys. The self-hosted angle is the differentiator against [[GitHub Codespaces]]: compliance-heavy organizations (their customer list includes Square, Dropbox, Palantir, Mercedes, and the US Department of Defense) keep source code and agent traffic inside their own network. ## Reported outcomes - Dropbox: 4x faster developer onboarding - J.B. Hunt: 90% lower VDI costs Vendor-published numbers; directional at best. ## Model Open-source core (`coder/coder` on GitHub, AGPL-3.0) with a paid Premium tier for enterprise features. You bring the infrastructure; Terraform templates define what a workspace is. ## References - [Coder Website](https://coder.com) - [Coder on GitHub](https://github.com/coder/coder) - [Coder Documentation](https://coder.com/docs) ## Related - [[GitHub Codespaces]] — the managed alternative - [[AI Agents]] — the new tenant of these environments - [[Claude Code]] — one of the agents you would run in a governed workspace - [[Docker Sandboxes]] — local-scale sibling of the same isolation idea - [[Cloud Development Environments (CDEs)]] — the category - [[Devcontainers]] — the workspace definition format