are important factors. More efforts are required to develop low-cost and efficient electrode materials. [4,5] As an important part of battery components, anode materials have been one of the most critical and extensively studied aspects in electrochemical research. [6][7][8][9][10] Among the many anode materials, transition metal-based compounds are characterized as a promising species due to their abundant reserves and multiple valence nature. Having more electrons involved in electrochemical reactions can provide higher capacity that meet the energy density requirements of modern electrochemical storage devices. [11,12] In this regard, many efforts have been made to discover new transition metal-based anode materials such as carbides, oxides, phosphides, or sulfides. [13][14][15] Due to its abundance and low prices, mineral-type nickel sulfide has gained much attention in photo-electrochemistry and is widely used in semiconductor, magnetic, photo-electrocatalytic, thermoelectric, phase-converting materials, and electrode materials for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. [16][17][18][19][20] In prior research, the numerous nickel sulfides applied in rechargeable lithiumion batteries (NiS, NiS 2 , Ni 3 S 2 , and Ni 3 S 4 ) have all possessed high theoretical capacities (NiS/589, NiS 2 /870, Ni 3 S 2 /445, and Ni 3 S 4 /703 mAh g −1 ). [20] However, nickel sulfides are seldom regarded as excellent candidates for lithium-ion batteries, mainly due to the instability in the nickel-rich active material. As a result, during lithiation and delithiation the active materials tend to be more susceptible to pulverization and collapse, making it difficult to form a stable interface. The everexpanding interface area between active materials and electrolyte will continuously consume Li + to form the solid electrolyte interface (SEI), resulting in low coulombic efficiency. Meanwhile, the electrically insulated SEI layer will wrap the active materials to form "inactive island" which results in rapid capacity decay and poor cycle performance. [21,22] Numerous strategies have been developed to address this issue, such as controlling cutoff voltage, [20] constructing nanomaterials, [21] and compositing with graphene. [23,24] However, despite extensive research efforts, improving the performance of nickel sulfide to achieve high specific capacity and long cycle life is still a challenge. [21,25,26] Herein, a step-divided construction method was developed successfully to synthesize the NiS x @carbon (NiS x @C) yolk-shell microboxes via a template-assisted coating, thermal Nickel sulfides are regarded as promising anode materials for advanced rechargeable lithium-ion batteries due to their high theoretical capacity. However, capacity fade arising from significant volume changes during operation greatly limits their practical applications. Herein, confined NiS x @C yolk-shell microboxes are constructed to address volume changes and confine the active material in the internal void space. Having benefited from the yolk-shell structure de...