Desktop

Open

On the box page's Desktop tab, pick Desktop (XFCE) or Browser (one Chrome window), then click open. From the terminal:

prized desktop
prized browser --url https://example.com

It is up in a few seconds; a box created before September 2, 2026 installs the packages on its first open (about two minutes, once).

What you get

• Desktop: XFCE with a terminal, a file manager and Chrome; xdotool and wmctrl are installed for scripts.
• Browser: one maximized Chrome window and nothing else; sign in to a site once and tools on the box can reuse the profile.
• Keyboard and mouse work as in a native window; the tab's header has full screen and two clipboard buttons, paste to the box and copy from it.
• Closing the tab leaves the desktop running, with the same windows when you reopen it; Stop desktop in the tab, or prized desktop --stop, ends it.

Let an agent drive it

An agent on the box can use a web page or any GUI app on its own, from its shell; nothing needs to run on your machine. The tools below come with the box image; on a box created before September 2, 2026 whose desktop was never opened, and for scrot on older images, install them first:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y xvfb openbox xdotool wmctrl scrot

If google-chrome-stable is missing too, install it with curl -fsSL -o /tmp/chrome.deb https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb && sudo apt-get install -y /tmp/chrome.deb.

Web pages: headless Chrome needs no screen and is the most reliable.

google-chrome-stable --headless=new --user-data-dir=/tmp/agent-headless --window-size=1280,800 --screenshot=/tmp/page.png https://example.com

For clicks and forms, Playwright works from Python, which the box has (Node is not preinstalled): python3 -m venv ~/pw && ~/pw/bin/pip install playwright, then launch the installed Chrome with channel="chrome".

Any GUI app: start a screen of its own, with a window manager so wmctrl sees the windows, then run the app on it.

Xvfb :99 -screen 0 1920x1080x24 -nolisten tcp & sleep 1; DISPLAY=:99 openbox &

To watch the agent work, open the desktop (prized desktop or the Desktop tab) and have it use DISPLAY=:10, without starting a screen of its own.

Give your agent this prompt:

This Linux box has no screen attached. If a command below is missing, run `sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y xvfb openbox xdotool wmctrl scrot` first. For a web page, prefer headless Chrome: google-chrome-stable --headless=new --user-data-dir=/tmp/agent-headless --window-size=1280,800 --screenshot=/tmp/page.png URL, then read the PNG. For an interactive browser or any other GUI app, start a virtual screen once with `Xvfb :99 -screen 0 1920x1080x24 -nolisten tcp & sleep 1; DISPLAY=:99 openbox &`, run the app with DISPLAY=:99, and work in a loop: take a screenshot with `DISPLAY=:99 scrot -o /tmp/screen.png` and read the PNG, then act with xdotool (`mousemove X Y click 1`, `type 'TEXT'`, `key ctrl+l`) and wmctrl (`-l`, `-a NAME`), all with DISPLAY=:99. Take a new screenshot after each step to check it worked.

Browser profiles

A profile is Chrome's user data directory at ~/.prized/browser/<name> on the box (default when you name none): sign-ins, cookies and extensions persist across restarts and ride a snapshot. Names use letters, digits, - and _, up to 64 characters.

Starting the browser with a different profile replaces the running window; starting it again with the same profile and a URL opens that page as a new tab.

Pause and resume

On Nano through Small the desktop resumes as it was; Medium and larger start a fresh one, and files, packages and profiles survive either way (Pause and resume).

Security

• Loopback only. The VNC server listens on the box's loopback; nothing new is reachable from the internet.
• A random password per start, kept only on the box in a file only your user can read. The dashboard uses it for you; --no-open and --json print it, and the default output shows only the forwarded vnc:// address.
• The VNC port (5910 for the desktop, 5911 for the browser) appears in prized ports like any listener, but needs no mirroring: the desktop command forwards it itself.

Limits

• VNC, not video: responsive for editors, terminals and browsing, not full-motion video. No audio.
• Fixed 1920x1080, scaled to your window. No GPU on any box size.
• Agents and scripts drive the desktop, or a screen of their own, from a shell (Let an agent drive it): DISPLAY=:10 is the desktop, DISPLAY=:11 the browser window.
• One desktop and one browser window per box.

Troubleshooting