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The Code Interpreter SDK runs on the public code-interpreter-v1 sandbox template. You can customize it in two ways:
  1. Create a custom template that extends code-interpreter-v1 with extra packages or a different runtime — this is the recommended approach for most use cases.
  2. Build the production template directly from the code-interpreter repository — useful when contributing to the SDK or building the official code-interpreter-v1 template yourself.

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Create a custom template

Use this when you need extra preinstalled packages or a different runtime. Your template builds on top of code-interpreter-v1, so everything the Code Interpreter SDK relies on stays in place.

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1. Install the E2B SDK

npm install e2b dotenv

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2. Create a template file

// template.ts
import { Template } from 'e2b';

export const template = Template().fromTemplate("code-interpreter-v1");

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3. Create a build script

// build.ts
import "dotenv/config";
import { Template, defaultBuildLogger } from 'e2b';
import { template } from './template';

async function main() {
  await Template.build(template, 'code-interpreter-custom', {
    cpuCount: 2,
    memoryMB: 2048,
    onBuildLogs: defaultBuildLogger(),
  });
}

main().catch(console.error);

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4. Set your environment variables

Create a .env file with your API key (loaded by dotenv / load_dotenv()): 
E2B_API_KEY=e2b_***

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5. Build the template

npx tsx build.ts

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6. Use the custom template

import { Sandbox } from '@e2b/code-interpreter'

const sbx = await Sandbox.create("code-interpreter-custom")
const execution = await sbx.runCode("print('Hello, World!')")
console.log(execution.logs.stdout)
See Install custom packages for preinstalling specific Python and Node.js packages with pip / npm.

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Build the production template

To build the official code-interpreter-v1 template from the code-interpreter repository, use build_prod.py. This is the script CI and releases run, and it’s the path to take when you’re contributing to the SDK or want to rebuild the production template yourself.

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1. Clone the repository

The template lives in the template/ directory — run the remaining steps from there. 
git clone https://github.com/e2b-dev/code-interpreter.git
cd code-interpreter/template

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2. Install the build dependencies

pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

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3. Provide your credentials

Create a .env file with your API key: 
E2B_API_KEY=e2b_***

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4. Build the template

python build_prod.py
To force a clean rebuild that ignores the layer cache, set SKIP_CACHE=true: 
SKIP_CACHE=true python build_prod.py