Hey HN, Lume is an open-source CLI for running macOS and Linux VMs on Apple Silicon. Since launch (
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42908061), we've been using it to run AI agents in isolated macOS environments. We needed VMs that could set themselves up, so we built that.
Here's what's new in 0.2:
*Unattended Setup* – Go from IPSW to a fully configured VM without touching the keyboard. We built a VNC + OCR system that clicks through macOS Setup Assistant automatically. No more manual setup before pushing to a registry:
lume create my-vm --os macos --ipsw latest --unattended tahoe
You can write custom YAML configs to set up any macOS version your way.
*HTTP API + Daemon* – A REST API on port 7777 that runs as a background service. Your scripts and CI pipelines can manage VMs that persist even if your terminal closes:
curl -X POST localhost:7777/lume/vms/my-vm/run -d '{"noDisplay": true}'
*MCP Server* – Native integration with Claude Desktop and AI coding agents. Claude can create, run, and execute commands in VMs directly:
# Add to Claude Desktop config
"lume": { "command": "lume", "args": ["serve", "--mcp"] }
# Then just ask: "Create a sandbox VM and run my tests"
*Multi-location Storage* – macOS disk space is always tight, so from user feedback we added support for external drives. Add an SSD, move VMs between locations:
lume config storage add external-ssd /Volumes/ExternalSSD/lume
lume clone my-vm backup --source-storage default --dest-storage external-ssd
*Registry Support* – Pull and push VM images from GHCR or GCS. Create a golden image once, share it across your team.
We're seeing people use Lume for:
- Running Claude Code in an isolated VM (your host stays clean, reset mistakes by cloning)
- CI/CD pipelines for Apple platform apps
- Automated UI testing across macOS versions
- Disposable sandboxes for security research
To get started:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trycua/cua/main/libs/lume/scripts/install.sh)"
lume create sandbox --os macos --ipsw latest --unattended tahoe
lume run sandbox --shared-dir ~/my-project
Lume is MIT licensed and Apple Silicon only (M1/M2/M3/M4) since it uses Apple's native Virtualization Framework directly—no emulation.
Lume runs on EC2 Mac instances and Scaleway if you need cloud infrastructure. We're also working on a managed cloud offering for teams that need macOS compute on demand—if you're interested, reach out.
We're actively developing this as part of Cua (https://github.com/trycua/cua), our Computer Use Agent SDK. We'd love your feedback, bug reports, or feature ideas.
GitHub: https://github.com/trycua/cua
Docs: https://cua.ai/docs/lume
We'll be here to answer questions!
Slight tangent - do the VMs have decent graphics performance? I live in fear of one day accidentally pressing the Update button and being forced into the GUI mess that is Tahoe. Knowing I could just use a VM with Sequioa as my primary desktop would dramatically lower my anxiety.
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