vmctl 2026.08.06 — first public family release

First public release of the vmctl family: open-source conservation tooling for born-digital art from ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

One artwork, three stages: artwork-autopsy analyses an unknown work (published alpha), the Research VM Controller revives it on a faithful period virtual machine (alpha, APIs in flux), the Exhibition VM Controller runs it unattended through an exhibition (published, in production use). vmctl-core is the shared foundation; vmctl-guest-agent the in-guest agent; wayback-mcp the web-archive side-car; docs the source of docs.vmctl.org.

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/zkmkarlsruhe/vmctl.git

Releases here are squashed snapshots of the internal history; canonical development happens on ZKM infrastructure. Sites: https://vmctl.org — story, contribution paths (a work first, code last), and Lab Notes.