Aquanode DocsEnvironment
Everything outside /workspace: the base image, what you installed, and the startup script. Saved as a new version when you Stop the pod and something changed.
An Environment is everything outside /workspace: the base image the box boots from,
the packages you installed, and the startup script. What you installed, not what you
made. If you can reinstall it, it belongs here.
Saved at every Stop
Your pod's environment is captured every time you Stop it, with no click required, and it comes back on the next Start.
A Stop saves a new numbered version (v1, v2, v3, ...) when something changed: the first Stop always saves v1, and a later Stop saves the next version only if you installed or changed something since the last one. A Stop with no changes saves nothing new. Share picks one of these versions to send, and "Keep this environment" (which asks for a name) saves the current one under a name you can reuse.
A pod has no versions of its own
Rolling back the pod's setup means picking an older Environment version. Rolling back its data means picking a Volume history point. The two never touch each other.
What travels with it
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Base image | The image the box boots from |
| Packages | What you installed with pip, apt, or a template's own installer |
| Startup script | Runs once on first boot, then again on every later launch of the pod |
Everything under /workspace is Volume, not Environment, even a virtualenv you built
there. Put anything you want captured with the environment outside /workspace; put
anything you want captured with your data inside it. See
the mental model.
Startup script
This is what rebuilds your environment on a new box. It runs once, the first time the box comes up, and again on every later launch of the pod.
Use it for the things that are cheaper to re-run than to store: apt packages, pip installs, environment variables, a service you want listening. Manage scripts under Settings, Startup scripts in the console, and save one as a preset if you want it across pods.
Add it before or after launch
A startup script is not a launch-time-only decision. You can attach one to a pod that is already running, and it takes effect the next time the box comes up.
Rolling one back
From a Stopped pod's Overview, Environment: <name> v3 · Change lists every version of
this environment, the built-in it came from, and Reset to built-in. Picking one sets
the pod's next Start to use it. This is only available on a Stopped pod.
Built-in environments
Aquanode ships a handful of built-in environments you can start from with no setup: an empty box, Notebook (JupyterLab and PyTorch), ComfyUI, and a large-memory box for fine-tuning. See Launching a pod. Built-in environments have no owner and cannot be deleted; "Reset to built-in" always works.
What it costs
You pay to hold an Environment's versions at $0.02/GiB per month, the same rate as a Volume. A pod's own unshared, unkept working environment costs nothing beyond that: it is part of the pod, not a separate line item.
Where to go next
See Sharing an environment for how the link and the fork on the other end work.