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microagent clone

Last updated: 2026-08-15

microagent clone <source> <target> [--state-dir <dir>]

clone copies a prepared, halted, or stopped workspace into a new workspace record. The target gets its own rootfs and workspace-owned disks. Runtime process state is not copied - for a running-state fork, see create --from-snapshot.

In a terminal, a clone that takes long enough to notice reports copied bytes on stderr. Its total is the logical size of the source workspace files, and completion is reported only after the target workspace record is published. JSON and MCP responses contain no terminal progress text.

Keep a template workspace and clone working copies from it:

Terminal window
microagent clone template research
microagent start research

--state-dir matters only when the workspaces live outside the default ~/.microagent/.

Flag Description
--state-dir <dir> State directory holding the workspace records (default ~/.microagent/)

clone operates on offline disks; it takes no backend or supervisor selection.

  • The source must be prepared, halted, or stopped.
  • The target workspace must not already exist.
  • Files under workspaces/<source>/ are copied.
  • Disk paths inside the source workspace directory are rewritten to the target workspace directory.
  • External disk paths are left unchanged.

clone exits 0 on success; nonzero when the source is missing, running, or paused, the target already exists, or the copy fails.

  • create - build a workspace from an image
  • start - boot the clone
  • list - list source and target side by side