FAQ: Five Runtime Myths a Free Agent Box Will Repeat

Did your agent "pass" because python --version looked friendly? That print is only one process screenshot, not a matrix. I keep hearing the same five confident claims. They show up after a free coding box "works." They also sneak into otherwise careful code reviews. This FAQ is a corrected mental model you can test. Each myth gets a command you can run. Then I give a fingerprint you can diff. Why these myths spread A chat log is not a Dockerfile you can hash. A green terminal pane is not production. You already know that, so why still ship on vibes? Cheap model calls made the loop feel free. A free server made the loop feel local. Those two facts are not one contract. MonkeyCode offers free model access and a free server option. Disclosure: This article was prepared as part of MonkeyCode's product outreach. Treat that pairing as a scratchpad, not a base image. Would you ship from a cafe laptop you do not own? Myth 1: The box version is close enough Claim: Node 20-something is fine for 20.11. Repeat: Semver majors match, so merge the branch. A close version is still not a pinned version. Patch releases change OpenSSL defaults under you. They also change error text that brittle tests scrape. Evidence I actually run: node -p "process.version + ' ' + process.arch + ' ' + process.platform" python3 -c "import sys,platform; print(sys.version); print(platform.platform())" go env GOVERSION GOOS GOARCH 2>/dev/null || true Corrected model: a runtime is a tuple, not a vibe. Name, version, arch, libc, and locale all count. If CI does not echo that tuple, you are guessing. Ask the agent for the tuple in a file. Do not accept a sentence in the transcript. Committed files survive, and chat compliments do not travel. Myth 2: Global installs are now the project Claim: pip install foo on the box fixed imports. Repeat: The agent installed it, so we are good. A global binary is a PATH accident waiting overnight. The next session may not have that PATH. Your teammate's laptop never had i