AWS AgentCore Runtime adds persistent interactive shell sessions for agents

Full analysis

AWS Bedrock AgentCore Runtime now supports interactive shell sessions, giving agents stateful terminal access within their sandboxed execution environments. Unlike single-shot command execution (where each command runs in isolation), interactive shells preserve environment variables, working directories, and running processes across multiple commands for the lifetime of a session — up to 10 concurrent shell sessions per runtime session. This is a meaningful capability upgrade for agent builders who need agents to perform multi-step coding, debugging, or system-administration tasks that depend on accumulated shell state.