// readme

skiff – a fresh Linux VM on your Mac in half a second

skiff gives you throwaway Linux VMs on Apple Silicon, one per task or coding agent: skiff new dev boots an Ubuntu 24.04 VM with its own kernel, disk, IP and root SSH in about two seconds (the boot itself takes half a second), and skiff rm dev throws it away. Credentials the agent needs stay on the Mac and reach the VM through a broker, never as copies.

macOS (skiff)
 ├── VM dev   (Virtualization.framework via Apple's `container`, 192.168.64.x, ssh dev.skiff)
 ├── VM ai    (…)                                     ──┐ relay: localhost:3000 → ai:3000
 └── broker   (credentials, MCP servers, audit log)   ◀─┘ ssh -R tunnel per session

Each VM is a container machine: a Virtualization.framework VM driven by Apple’s container CLI. There is no nested virtualization and no shared runtime VM, so JIT-heavy workloads such as Claude Code run at Mac speed. The host side is one Go binary; the guest is a plain Ubuntu image with systemd, sshd and skiff’s key.

Requirements

  • Apple Silicon (any generation)
  • macOS 26 or newer (what Apple’s container supports)
  • Homebrew (skiff…