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Isolated Dev Environments in Goose with container-use

· 4 min read
Michael Neale
Principal Engineer

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Over ten years ago, Docker came onto the scene and introduced developers en masse to the concept and practice of containers. These containers helped solve deployment and build-time problems, and in some cases, issues with development environments. They quickly became mainstream. The technology underlying containers included copy-on-write filesystems and lightweight, virtual-machine-like environments that helped isolate processes and simplify cleanup.

Dagger, the project and company founded by Docker’s creator Solomon Hykes, has furthered the reach of containers for developers.

One project that emerged from this work is Container Use, an MCP server that gives agents an interface for working in isolated containers and git branches. It supports clear lifecycles, easy rollbacks, and safer experimentation, without sacrificing the ergonomics developers expect from local agents.

Container Use brings containerized, git-branch-isolated development directly into your Goose workflow. While still early in its development, it's evolving quickly and already offers helpful tools for lightweight, branch-specific isolation when you need it.

Why I Used Goose to Build a Chaotic Emotion Detection App

· 5 min read
Rizel Scarlett
Staff Developer Advocate

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Developers deserve to have fun. There was a time when the internet felt magical. I remember going to the library just to create a character on The Doll Palace. At home, I'd spend hours changing fonts with WordArt. But as I grew up, the industry did too. We've shifted away from marquees and glittery cursors. Grown-up me started using ones and zeros to build reliable systems for insurance, banking, and healthcare companies. There's pride in that, but it's harder to justify doing something just because it's fun.

That's why I tapped into my inner child and used Goose to build a UI that reacts to users' emotions.

Treating LLMs Like Tools in a Toolbox: A Multi-Model Approach to Smarter AI Agents

· 4 min read
Michael Neale
Principal Engineer
Angie Jones
Head of Developer Relations

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Not every task needs a genius. And not every step should cost a fortune.

That's something we've learned while scaling Goose, our open source AI agent. The same model that's great at unpacking a planning request might totally fumble a basic shell command, or worse - it might burn through your token budget doing it.

So we asked ourselves: what if we could mix and match models in a single session?

Not just switching based on user commands, but building Goose with an actual system for routing tasks between different models, each playing to their strengths.

This is the gap the lead/worker model is designed to fill.

Democratizing Detection Engineering at Block: Taking Flight with Goose and Panther MCP

· 17 min read
Tomasz Tchorz
Security Engineer
Glenn Edwards
Detection Engineer

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Detection engineering stands at the forefront of cybersecurity, yet it’s often a tangled web of complexity. Traditional detection writing involves painstaking manual processes encompassing log format and schema comprehension, intricate query creation, threat modeling, and iterative manual detection testing and refinement, leading to time expenditure and reliance on specialized expertise. This can lead to gaps in threat coverage and an overwhelming number of alerts. At Block, we face the relentless challenge of evolving threats and intricate system complexities. To stay ahead, we've embraced AI-driven solutions, notably Goose, Block’s open-source AI agent, and Panther MCP, to allow the broader organization to contribute high-quality rules that are contextual to their area of expertise. This post delves into how we're transforming complicated detection workflows into streamlined, AI-powered, accessible processes for all stakeholders.

3 Prompts to Test for Agent Readiness

· 3 min read
Angie Jones
Head of Developer Relations

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Goose is LLM-agnostic, meaning you can plug in the model of your choice. However, not every LLM is suitable to work with agents. Some may be great at answering things, but not actually doing things. If you're considering which model to use with an agent, these 3 prompts can quickly give you a sense of the model's capabilities.

How I Manage Localhost Port Conflicts With an AI Agent

· 3 min read
Rizel Scarlett
Staff Developer Advocate

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Localhost Ports Hoarding

I'm perpetually drowning in open tabs. Yes, I do need Bluesky, ChatGPT, Claude, Goose, Cursor, Discord, Slack, Netflix, and Google Docs all open at the same time. I've learned that tab management isn't my only vice.

"Hi, my name is Rizel, and I'm a localhost ports hoarder. 👋🏿"

Goose Gets a Driver's License!

· 6 min read
W Ian Douglas
Staff Developer Advocate

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I taught Goose how to drive (a rover)

Goose has no hands, no eyes, and no spatial awareness, but it can drive a rover!

I came across a demo video from Deemkeen, where he used Goose to control a Makeblock mbot2 rover using natural language commands like "drive forward/backward," "beep," and "turn left/right" powered by a Java-based MCP server and MQTT.

Inspired and excited to take it further, I taught the rover to spin, blink colorful lights, and help me take over the world!

Goose and Qwen3 for Local Execution

· 3 min read
Michael Neale
Principal Engineer

local AI agent

A couple of weeks back, Qwen 3 launched with a raft of capabilities and sizes. This model showed promise and even in very compact form, such as 8B parameters and 4bit quantization, was able to do tool calling successfully with goose. Even multi turn tool calling.

I haven't seen this work at such a scaled down model so far, so this is really impressive and bodes well for both this model, but also future open weight models both large and small. I would expect the Qwen3 larger models work quite well on various tasks but even this small one I found useful.