---

title: "Processes" description: "Execute commands and manage spawned processes inside the VM." category: "Quickstart" order: 5

Run shell commands and manage long-lived processes from inside a VM. Reach for this when you need to invoke CLI tools, build pipelines, or launch a script and stream its output as it runs.

How it works

Create a VM with AgentOs.create(), then drive it two ways. Use vm.exec() for one-shot shell commands — it runs pipelines, grep, sed, and the like, returning stdout and an exitCode. For longer-running work, vm.spawn() starts a process and hands back a pid; subscribe with vm.onProcessOutput(pid, handler). Wait for completion with vm.waitProcess(pid), and inspect what is running with vm.listProcesses().

Run it

npm install
npm run dev -- processes

You should see captured exec output, streamed tick lines from the spawned Node script, its exit code, and the live process list.

Source

View the source on GitHub: https://github.com/rivet-dev/agent-os/tree/main/examples/quickstart/processes