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AgentVM app 1.1

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@abra-code abra-code released this 13 Oct 04:01
v1.1
bd5aaad

New: Linux images and boxes, logs you can find, and Rename.

AgentVM.app is a Mac app for creating and managing AgentVM images and boxes: the virtual machines, running macOS or Linux, that AI coding agents run in, isolated from your Mac. It is a companion to the agent-vm and avm command line tools. Agents themselves run in Terminal (avm) or in Cadabra.

Highlights

  • Linux images and boxes beside macOS ones: a first image in minutes with no macOS download, and boxes that start in seconds.
  • Logs: every box, image and job says where its logs are, and the logs of a deleted box are kept for a while.
  • Rename a box or an image from its pane.
  • Get started no longer needs a macOS restore file: the first image can be a Linux one.
  • agent-vm 0.7.46: the app follows the newest tools and installs them for you.

Linux images and boxes

A Linux box is for work that does not need a Mac. It starts in seconds, and its image is built without a macOS restore file.

  • A first image without downloading macOS. New Image... lists the Linux systems your agent-vm builds, Debian 13 today. The image is made from the distribution's own cloud image, which agent-vm downloads and checks when it is needed. How long it takes is mostly the downloads: a few minutes on a fast connection.
  • Tools. They are added as for a macOS image, by ticking recipes: in the same build, or later in a copy of the image. The window lists only the recipes that fit the system you start from.
  • Boxes. A Linux box is made, started, stopped, recreated and deleted like a macOS box, with the same network rules and shared folder. Connect opens a shell in it and Run an Agent starts an agent in it. It has no screen, so it has no View.
  • Updates. Update... on a Linux image installs the distribution's package updates, the tools' own updates and the newer guest daemon, the part of agent-vm that runs in the image.
  • The kernel's memory pages. A Linux image is built with a kernel whose memory pages are 16 KiB, the Mac's own size, which keeps a box steady when the Mac runs short of memory. The image and box panes say which size each has.
  • Told apart at a glance. The card of a Linux image or of a running Linux box is teal (a stopped box: slate), and every pane says which system an image or a box runs.
  • Beside two macOS boxes. macOS runs at most two macOS virtual machines at once. Linux ones are not counted among them, and the app never holds a Linux box or build back for that limit.
  • No Full Disk Access step. That permission exists only in a macOS image. A Linux image has none to grant, and nothing in its boxes waits for one.
  • No Local Network question. macOS asks it during the first build of a macOS image only.

What the app leaves to agent-vm in Terminal:

  • an image from a cloud image file of your own (image create --linux ... --cloud-image), and building an image again from a fresh start (image rebuild);
  • a program run as root in a Linux box, such as installing a system package (agent-vm exec --user root);
  • copying files into a box (box send).

The rest is in Docs/linux-boxes.md of the agent-vm repository.

Get started

  • The restore file is no longer a step you must take. Step 3 says that one is needed only for a macOS image, and New Image... in step 4 works without it: start from a Linux system.
  • Full Disk Access (step 5) is asked of macOS images only.

Logs

agent-vm records what it started in a box, what the box contacted and what was refused, in files on your Mac that nothing in a box can change. The app now shows where they are.

  • A box and an image each have a Logs row in their pane: the box's log files in Finder or in Console, and for an image the log of the job that last built or updated it. A Linux image also has the console of its system.
  • A build, an update or a start has Show Log in Finder in its progress window: every step and line of the job, which agent-vm keeps for a week.
  • A deleted box leaves its logs behind, for 30 days unless you change it. Delete says so before you confirm. Settings says how many are kept and what they take, shows them in Finder, removes them, and sets for how long they are kept.
  • Where the Logs Are..., in How to Use a Box, says which file answers which question and gives the Terminal commands that read them.

Rename

  • A Rename button beside the name in a box's pane and in an image's pane opens a small window with the name in a field and the rule for names under it.
  • A box can be renamed while it is stopped. It keeps what it holds, its network rules and its logs, and avm goes on using it for the folders it was used for.
  • An image takes its boxes and the images built from it along at once: each names its image by the new name.
  • When agent-vm refuses a name, for example one that is taken, the window shows its reason and stays open.

Builds and updates

  • A notice stays until the job ends well. What agent-vm says before a step, for example about the Mac's memory before a boot, is no longer dropped when the next step begins: it stays in the progress window, marked "From an earlier step:", and is in the log too.
  • A Linux build runs in two boots, the second on the 16 KiB kernel, and the progress window shows both.
  • Update... says what an update now does first: a guest daemon ticked beside another part is replaced first and stays even if that part fails, and a tools update uses the newer recipe that came with the installed agent-vm.
  • A macOS guest that starts again instead of powering off at the end of a build is asked to shut down again, and the build no longer fails for it.

Installing agent-vm

  • Each version of agent-vm now installs beside the one before, so an update no longer takes the tools away from under boxes and jobs that are running. The app's Install... and Update... follow that.

Other changes

  • The button for deleted boxes' logs is in Settings, not under the list of boxes.
  • After an agent session in a kept box, avm asks whether to stop the box and lists what changed in the shared folder, with undo per entry. How to Use a Box says so.
  • A new link opens the logs window:
open agentvm://logs            # the Where the Logs Are window

Good to know

  • Debian is the one Linux system offered. Ubuntu 26.04 is left out for now: it has no kernel with 16 KiB memory pages, and a box on its 4 KiB kernel can lose memory and stop when the Mac runs short of it.
  • Disk space. A Linux image needs no 27 GB restore file. Its disk is a sparse file, which takes only what is written to it, and a box shares what it did not change with its image.
  • One agent-vm. Terminal, Cadabra and this app all run the copy in ~/.local/bin.

Requirements and installing

  • A Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 27 or later. The app does not open anywhere else.
  • agent-vm 0.7.46 or later. The app offers to install or update it.

Open AgentVM_1.1.zip and move AgentVM.app to the Applications folder, replacing version 1.0.

License

Apache License 2.0, as agent-vm.

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