Hyperbox

A native macOS app for running macOS and Linux virtual machines on your Mac.

What it does

• Installs in one click. macOS comes straight from Apple, and on macOS 27 it sets itself up with no Setup Assistant. Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian install on their own and start at a signed-in desktop. You can also boot any ISO or IPSW.
• Feels like part of your Mac. The clipboard works both ways, you can drop files onto a machine, Mac folders show up in the guest, and sound and the microphone pass through. The display follows the window, up to 5K, with Metal graphics in macOS guests.
• Snapshots in seconds, whether the machine is running or not. They take space only as the machine changes. Quitting suspends a machine, and it picks up where it left off.
• Templates and recipes. Set a machine up once, then hyperbox clone it for each project or experiment: clones are instant and take space only as they change. hyperbox provision runs setup recipes in a guest: Hyperbox's own (Homebrew, Oh My Zsh, VS Code, Helium, Python, a black desktop, a Dock that hides itself, no sleep, no banners) or scripts of yours.
• Each machine runs as its own app, with its own Dock icon, so a crash takes down only that machine.
• Port forwarding reaches a web server or SSH in a guest through a port on your Mac. Shared folders, the network and port forwards change while the machine runs.
• Moves in one piece. A machine is one file, so it copies to another Mac. Duplicates take no space until they change. It imports Parallels and UTM machines, and qcow2 and VMDK disks.
• AI agents get their own machines. Hyperbox's MCP server lets Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others see the screen, use the machine's own keyboard and mouse, and run commands, as a user or as root. They never touch your Mac's screen, so Hyperbox needs no Accessibility or Screen Recording permission. Add it to your agents in one click under Settings › Agents, and turn it off for any machine.
• Understands screens on your Mac. hyperbox wait holds a script, recipe or CI job until the guest's screen matches a question ("Is the installer finished?"), hyperbox check answers one with a calibrated probability, and hyperbox describe reads the screen out. Agents get the same as MCP tools, so they can wait without spending tokens on screenshots. It runs Liquid AI's d1-2B and LFM3-VL-2B in llama.cpp, downloaded on first use; nothing leaves your Mac. Turn it off under Settings › Models. The models are under the LFM Open License v1.0.
• Runs Docker containers without Docker Desktop, using the usual docker command, Compose and Testcontainers. The engine starts with your first container and stops when none are left. Run hyperbox containers setup to point Docker at it.

Installation

Download

Get Hyperbox-<version>.dmg from the latest release, open it, and drag Hyperbox into Applications. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon on macOS 26 or later.

The app isn't notarized, so macOS blocks the first launch. Allow it under System Settings › Privacy & Security › Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Hyperbox.app

To get the hyperbox command, use Hyperbox › Install ‘hyperbox’ Command in PATH.

Hyperbox updates itself: it checks for a new release once a day and asks before installing it. Check by hand with Hyperbox › Check for Updates…, or let it install updates in the background under Settings › General › Updates.

Build from source

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexisbcz/hyperbox/main/install.sh | bash

It also links the hyperbox command into your PATH.

The hyperbox command

hyperbox list                         # your machines, their state and address
hyperbox start ubuntu --wait          # boot one and wait for its address
hyperbox ssh ubuntu                   # as the user Hyperbox created
hyperbox forward ubuntu 8080:80       # then open http://localhost:8080
hyperbox exec ubuntu -- uname -a      # run a command in the guest
hyperbox snapshot ubuntu "clean"      # and later: hyperbox restore ubuntu clean
hyperbox cp ./site ubuntu:~/          # files and folders, either way
hyperbox clone macos demo             # a new machine from a template, instantly
hyperbox provision demo vscode dock-autohide ./my-setup.sh
hyperbox display demo 2880x1620       # an exact screen size, for recordings
hyperbox wait demo --until "Is the desktop showing?" --timeout 600
hyperbox check demo "Which screen is showing?" --choice desktop --choice login --choice setup
hyperbox describe demo "Read the error message."
hyperbox mcp                          # the MCP server, for agents

Run hyperbox --help for the rest.

Releasing

1. Set MARKETING_VERSION in project.yml to the new version, so builds from source know which release they match.

2. Tag it and push the tag:

   git tag v0.2.0 && git push origin v0.2.0

The Release workflow builds the DMG, signs it for Sparkle, and publishes it with an appcast.xml, which installed copies read from the latest release. Signing needs the SPARKLE_PRIVATE_KEY repository secret, the private half of the SUPublicEDKey in Hyperbox/Info.plist. Sparkle's generate_keys --account hyperbox (in build/SourcePackages/artifacts/sparkle/Sparkle/bin after a build) keeps it in your keychain; generate_keys --account hyperbox -x key.txt exports it. Keep a backup: without it, installed copies can't take updates.

make dmg builds the same DMG locally.

MIT License