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Nido field guide

Real VMs. Agent-ready.

Nido manages local QEMU virtual machines through the CLI, terminal dashboard and stdio MCP. Use this wiki to find the right guide; operational instructions live in the repository so they can change together with the code.

Start here

• Quickstart and product overview
• Documentation index
• Install Nido
• Connect an MCP client

Work with VMs

• Provisioning, SSH, ports, templates and 9p sharing
• Images, catalog refresh and blueprints
• Windows hosts and evaluation guests
• Reusable agent testing skill
• CLI JSON contract
• Terminal dashboard and responsive preview
• Terminal themes

Build and maintain

• Contributing and testing
• Runtime architecture and hardware qualification
• Maintainer tools
• Distribution channels
• Roadmap and changelog

Which version does a guide describe?

Links above follow current main. For an installed release, select its tag in the repository file view and compare nido help or nido mcp-help. Use the actual catalog for available image versions, rather than a copied OS release list. VM creation, guest readiness and physical hardware qualification are separate claims. Preserve useful guest data before deleting a disposable VM.

Room to Roost in v4.9.0

Release v4.9.0 brings an adaptive TUI kit, compact dialogs and signed APT/DNF distribution. See the terminal preview, changelog and installation guide.

Update with nido update, then reopen TUI/MCP sessions to load the new binary. VM data and processes are preserved. The shared event contract owns dashboard synchronization and opt-in MCP notifications.