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How to use whzbox in non-interactive scripts

Use whzbox in scripts only with commands that do not require an interactive prompt, or with a valid cached session that was created earlier from a real terminal.

Prerequisites

  • A valid cached session created by whzbox login in an interactive terminal
  • jq if you want to parse JSON examples

Steps

1. Use JSON output for machine-readable data

sandbox_json=$(whzbox create aws --json)
printf '%s\n' "$sandbox_json" | jq -r '.credentials.access_key'

2. Use cache-only commands when you do not want auth side effects

whzbox list --json
whzbox status
whzbox exec aws -- aws sts get-caller-identity

list and exec do not talk to Whizlabs. status reads the cached session only.

3. Pass --yes for non-interactive destroy

whzbox destroy --yes

Without --yes, destroy returns a non-interactive error instead of waiting on a prompt.

Verification

Check the command exit status from the shell:

whzbox exec aws -- false
echo $?

The exit code from the child command is propagated by whzbox exec.

Troubleshooting

Problem: login fails in CI or cron

whzbox login is interactive only. Run it once from a real terminal first, or provide a pre-existing state directory.

Problem: status does not show a sandbox

That is expected. status reports the cached session only.

Problem: --json does not change the output

--json is only implemented by create and list.