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You can prepull MCP server Docker images during template build time to significantly improve runtime performance.

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How it works

When you build a template with prepulled MCP servers, the Docker images for those servers are downloaded and cached during the build process. This means when you create a sandbox from that template, the MCP servers are ready to use immediately without waiting for image downloads.
You must use the MCP gateway enabled template (mcp-gateway) as your base template to use this feature.

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Building a template with MCP servers

Use the addMcpServer() method (TypeScript) or add_mcp_server() method (Python) to prepull MCP server images during template build. You can pass a single server or an array of servers. The server names (like "browserbase" and "exa") correspond to the keys defined in the Available Servers documentation. 
import "dotenv/config";
import { Template, defaultBuildLogger } from 'e2b';

export const template = Template()
  .fromTemplate("mcp-gateway")
  .addMcpServer(["browserbase", "exa"]);

await Template.build(template, 'my-mcp-gateway', {
  cpuCount: 8,
  memoryMB: 8192,
  onBuildLogs: defaultBuildLogger(),
});

from dotenv import load_dotenv
from e2b import Template, default_build_logger

load_dotenv()

template = (
    Template()
    .from_template("mcp-gateway")
    .add_mcp_server(["browserbase", "exa"])
)

Template.build(
    template,
    'my-mcp-gateway',
    cpu_count=8,
    memory_mb=8192,
    on_build_logs=default_build_logger(),
)

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Using the template

Once built, create sandboxes from your template. You still need to provide the configuration for each MCP server. 
import { Sandbox } from 'e2b';

const sandbox = await Sandbox.create({
    template: "my-mcp-gateway",
    mcp: {
        browserbase: {
            apiKey: process.env.BROWSERBASE_API_KEY!,
            geminiApiKey: process.env.GEMINI_API_KEY!,
            projectId: process.env.BROWSERBASE_PROJECT_ID!,
        },
        exa: {
            apiKey: process.env.EXA_API_KEY!,
        },
    },
});


from e2b import Sandbox
import os

sbx = Sandbox.create(
    template="my-mcp-gateway",
    mcp={
        "browserbase": {
            "apiKey": os.getenv("BROWSERBASE_API_KEY"),
            "geminiApiKey": os.getenv("GEMINI_API_KEY"),
            "projectId": os.getenv("BROWSERBASE_PROJECT_ID"),
        },
        "exa": {
            "apiKey": os.getenv("EXA_API_KEY"),
        },
    }
)

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Learn more

For more information about working with templates, see: