A lightweight CLI for MacOS and Linux VMs on Apple Silicon

Alessandro — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 17:38:59 +0000

We just open-sourced Lume - a tool we built after hitting walls with existing virtualization options on Apple Silicon. No GUI, no complex stacks - just a single binary that lets you spin up macOS or Linux VMs via CLI or API.
Why we built Lume: - Run native macOS VMs in 1 command, using Apple Virtualization.Framework: lume run macos-sequoia-vanilla:latest

Prebuilt images on https://ghcr.io/trycua (macOS, Ubuntu on ARM)
API server to manage VMs programmatically POST /lume/vms
A python SDK on github.com/trycua/pylume

Run prebuilt macOS images in just 1 step: lume run macos-sequoia-vanilla:latest

How to Install:

brew tap trycua/lume

brew install lume

You can also download the lume.pkg.tar.gz archive from the latest release https://github.com/trycua/lume/releases, extract it, and install the package manually.

Local API Server: lume exposes a local HTTP API server that listens on http://localhost:3000/lume, enabling automated management of VMs.

lume serve

For detailed API documentation, please refer to API Reference(https://github.com/trycua/lume/blob/main/docs/API-Reference....).

HN devs - would love raw feedback on the API design and whether this solves your Apple Silicon VM pain points. What would make you replace UTM/Multipass/Docker Desktop with this?

Repo: https://github.com/trycua/lume Python SDK: github.com/trycua/pylume Discord for direct feedback: https://discord.gg/8p56E2KJ

DEV Community: Alessandro

A lightweight CLI for MacOS and Linux VMs on Apple Silicon