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machine

Open source toolPersistent environment

One ready-to-work Linux machine per project.

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Scanned 25 Sep 2026 · Schema v5 · features v18

Licence
MIT

Self-hosted; you pay for the infrastructure.

Free tier
Free to run

Isolation
Virtual machine

hypervisor, or nothing at all

Regions
—

Not disclosed on the public surface.

Capabilities
6 / 55

5 partial · 36 fail · 6 not assessed

Agent readiness
5/10 · 1/9

read · drive, pre-login surface

Advertised for

Per project dev environments · Sandboxed coding agent sessions · Docker workloads · Node js development · Browser testing (cypress/playwright profiles) · Supabase fly development

Built for

Developers, then technical

  • · CLI/SSH-first onboarding: `brew install katspaugh/machine/machine`, a terminal-driven hero, `machine up`/`machine ssh`/`machine claude`
  • · Deep infra vocabulary: Lima, Apple Virtualization (vz), qcow2, cloud-init provisioning, tmpfs secrets, forwarded ssh-agent, mode:data dotfiles, Homebrew tap + SHA256-pinned tarballs
  • · macOS 13+ (Apple Silicon or Intel) + Lima >= 2.0 is a hard technical prerequisite; version-controlled Lima templates + provision shell scripts are the customization model

01 Runtime Each fact carries its source; dots show confidence. Open a row for the evidence.

Isolation & lifecycle

Isolation primitive
Virtual machinehypervisor, or nothing at all
Persistence
Durable per-project VM. Each project's Lima VM has its own qcow2 disk (default 30 GiB, configurable per project); `machine down` STOPS the VM but PRESERVES the disk (re-provision in place with `machine up`), and `machine destroy` deletes it. A provisioned base disk is baked once into ~/.cache/machine and reused. Not ephemeral — 'your projects come back as machines.' No host filesystem is mounted (Lima's default mountType is disabled).
Snapshots / forks
A provisioned base disk is BAKED once (`machine bake`) into ~/.cache/machine and prepended as the top-priority image for every project VM — a golden base image that per-project VMs layer on (a fork-from-base pattern). But there is NO user-facing snapshot / restore / clone of a RUNNING VM; 'to start truly fresh: `machine destroy && machine up`.'

Resources & limits

Storage
Per-project qcow2 VM disk (default 30 GiB; per-project cpus/memory/disk override in projects.toml / .machine.toml). A baked base disk cached in ~/.cache/machine. No host filesystem mount (Lima mountType disabled). Repos clone to ~/code/<repo>/ inside the guest.
Limits & quotas
Operator-bounded — limited by your Mac's CPU/memory/disk. Per-VM resources are declared per project (defaults: 4 CPUs / 8 GiB memory / 30 GiB disk; a heavy monorepo can set more, e.g. 8 CPUs / 16 GiB / 60 GiB). No product-imposed SaaS quotas.
GPU
No

Access

Deploy interface
cli
SDK languages
None

Network & secrets

Egress controls
VMs get outbound network via Lima's default NAT; Lima auto-forwards any LISTENING guest port to 127.0.0.1 on the host. INBOUND host access is tightly restricted (no host filesystem mount; forwarded SSH agent keys can be used but not read; tmpfs secrets), but NO configurable egress firewall / allowlist / outbound policy is exposed.
Secrets
First-class tmpfs-only secrets. `machine secrets [p]` renders 1Password Environment(s) into VM tmpfs ($XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/dev-secrets) — 'wiped at shutdown'; `--clear` wipes them. Git identity + signing key flow in as Lima `--set` params and render into ~/.gitconfig; signing-key resolution has a documented precedence (GIT_SIGNING_KEY / OP_SIGNING_KEY_REF via `op read` / GIT_SIGNING_PUBKEY_FILE / host git config).
Bring your own cloud
na

Placement & use

Jurisdiction
na
Advertised workloads
Per project dev environmentsSandboxed coding agent sessionsDocker workloadsNode js developmentBrowser testing (cypress/playwright profiles)Supabase fly development

02 Capabilities 6 pass · 5 partial · 36 fail · 55 of 61 assessed

  • Supported
  • Partially supported
  • Not supported
  • Not assessed

Compute & storage 2/7

Persistent diskStorage that survives restart/stop (not ephemeral-only).
Supported
Object storageManaged S3-compatible / blob object store the platform PROVIDES to a user's workloads (buckets, presigned URLs). DISTINCT from persistent-disk (block/volume attached to an instance) and from a self-host dependency (source.self_host.deps[]=["object-storage"] is an infra dep to RUN an OSS tool — the opposite direction). SCOPE varies and matters: native first-class (Railway Buckets, Cloudflare R2) vs a sibling SKU / extension (Fly Tigris, Bunny Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces) — record which in the evidence quote / note. Admitted v15.
Not supported
Snapshots / forkingSnapshot or copy-on-write fork of a running instance (filesystem-only counts). Whether the snapshot also restores memory + running processes is recorded separately by memory-snapshot (v19).
Partially supported
Live-state (memory) snapshotsA snapshot / checkpoint / pause captures a running instance's MEMORY and PROCESS state and restores it, so running processes continue where they left off instead of a freshly booted instance with the same files. Counts whether user-triggered (snapshot, checkpoint, pause-to-storage) or used to restore pre-initialised state (memory snapshots for fast cold starts). Distinct from snapshots-forks (any snapshot or fork, including filesystem-only; a product passing that key may still fail this one) and from scale-to-zero (an idle-cost property; suspension may or may not keep memory). Actor multiplexing (see scale-to-zero) records its live-state half here — only when the suspended actor's MEMORY/process state is what comes back, not a freshly booted worker with the actor's files.
Not assessed
Scale to zeroIdle instances suspend at no / negligible cost. ACTOR MULTIPLEXING (many suspended stateful actors sharing a small pool of pre-warmed workers, woken on request — Agent Substrate, AX, kagent; Rivet's hibernating actors) has NO key of its own (proposal REJECTED v20) — score the idle-cost half HERE and the live-state half under memory-snapshot; the oversubscription ratio / density is a performance characteristic the registry does not key.
Not supported
GPU computeGPU-backed instances available.
Not supported
Multi-regionCompute placeable in more than one geographic region.
Not applicable
Sandbox templates / custom imagesBuild reusable sandbox/VM images from an OCI image or Dockerfile (a base you fork instances from).
Supported
Cloud-init / ignition configCustomise a VM / microVM / instance at boot via cloud-init (or ignition) user-data — the same boot-metadata interface as AWS/Azure/GCP. Inject packages, users, SSH keys, files, and run-commands declaratively at launch. Distinct from sandbox-templates (a PREBUILT image you fork instances from) — this is PER-LAUNCH declarative customisation, not a baked image.
Partially supported
Desktop / computer-use sandboxA virtual desktop (GUI) for LLM computer-use — browser + desktop automation, often via noVNC/VNC.
Not applicable
Selectable isolation runtimeThe user chooses the isolation runtime per workload / environment / sandbox from more than one option (e.g. microVM vs gVisor vs plain container, native namespaces vs gVisor, gVisor vs VM). Records the CHOICE; the isolation_primitive facet still records the best-evidenced primary. A platform that switches runtime automatically without a user choice (e.g. gVisor forced for GPU) does not pass on that alone.
Not assessed

Networking & delivery 0/8

Automatic HTTPSTLS endpoints provisioned automatically per workload.
Not supported
Built-in reverse proxyPlatform routes external traffic to workload services.
Partially supported
Custom domainsBring-your-own domain via CNAME/DNS.
Not supported
Public preview URLsShareable per-deploy / per-branch URLs.
Not supported
Direct public IPv6Per-instance stable public IPv6 for raw TCP/UDP (beyond a managed HTTPS proxy) — e.g. mosh / raw sockets.
Not supported
Egress controlsConfigurable OUTBOUND network policy — egress firewall / allowlist / egress proxy on traffic LEAVING a workload. Scoped to OUTBOUND only (v15): private-network REACHABILITY between a user's own services is private-networking, not this. Static-egress-IP belongs here (an outbound concept).
Not supported
Private networkingA platform-internal private network between a user's OWN services — service-to-service connectivity, VPC, service mesh, and/or service discovery, not exposed to the public internet. DISTINCT from egress-controls (OUTBOUND firewall/allowlist), reverse-proxy (PUBLIC inbound ingress), and direct-ipv6 (per-instance PUBLIC addressing). Admitted v15.
Not supported
Email send / receiveSend and/or receive email from the workload.
Not supported
Edge KV storeA globally-replicated key-value store read from WITHIN an edge runtime at the PoP (low-latency, eventually-consistent) — Cloudflare Workers KV, Deno KV, Fastly KV Store, Akamai EdgeKV, Vercel Edge Config. Distinct from first-party-db (a managed DATABASE service you provision and connect to) and from http-query-api (HTTP access to an external store) — edge-kv is colocated with the edge compute and read at the edge.
Not applicable

Developer access 2/8

Public APIDocumented programmatic API.
Not supported
OpenAPI specMachine-readable OpenAPI / Swagger spec published.
Not supported
CLIOfficial command-line tool.
Supported
SDKOfficial client library/libraries.
Not supported
SSH accessDirect SSH into workloads.
Supported
Filesystem APIRemote file operations over the API (list/read/write/watch/copy/upload) without SSH.
Not supported
Git deployDeploy from a Git repo / push-to-deploy.
Not supported
Private container registryHosted private image registry.
Not supported
E2B-compatible APIDrop-in compatibility with the E2B sandbox API/SDKs — existing E2B client code runs against this product by changing the endpoint/domain + key, with no business-code changes. E2B itself passes as the reference implementation. Distinct from public-api / sdk (the product has its own API — this key says it also speaks another vendor's) and from self-host-oss (a self-hosted E2B-compatible server is scored on both).
Not assessed
HTTP data APIQuery / read / write the stored DATA over plain HTTP/REST (or GraphQL) WITHOUT the native protocol driver (Postgres wire / Redis RESP) — agent- and edge-friendly data access via fetch(). The DATA plane; distinct from public-api (a control-plane / management API). Auto-generated-from-schema REST/GraphQL (PostgREST, pg_graphql) is a flavour of this.
Not applicable

AI & agents 0/11

Built-in coding agentShips a first-party AI coding agent in the product.
Partially supported
Agent skillsInstallable / declarable agent skills or tools.
Not supported
AI app builderPrompt-to-app / vibe-coding generation surface.
Not supported
MCP serverExposes a Model Context Protocol server for agents.
Not supported
MCP clientActs as an MCP client / consumes MCP tools.
Not supported
MCP-server hostingRun/host MCP servers as a workload on the platform (distinct from exposing a first-party MCP control server — that is mcp-server).
Not supported
LLM gatewayRoutes LLM API calls through the platform (multi-provider).
Not supported
BYOK for LLMsBring-your-own LLM provider keys.
Not supported
Model inference API (first-party)A FIRST-PARTY hosted LLM/model inference API — the provider serves its OWN catalogue of (usually open-weight) models behind a (typically OpenAI-compatible) endpoint, billed per token. Distinct from llm-gateway (a multi-PROVIDER proxy/router for YOUR calls to external providers like OpenAI/Anthropic) and from byok-llm (bring your own provider keys) — here the platform IS the inference provider, serving its own models.
Not supported
Autonomous QA agentA first-party AUTONOMOUS AI agent that QA-TESTS a running app / implementation — exercising it like a real user (clicking through flows, checking behaviour) and reporting bugs/defects (often back to a coding agent, or before a human review). Distinct from built-in-agent (a code-AUTHORING agent — this one VERIFIES the result, it does not write the feature; a product can ship both), from ai-guided-code-review (organises a diff for a HUMAN to review — not an autonomous tester), and from observability (runtime metrics/logs, not active testing).
Not supported
Credential-injection proxyThe platform holds real secrets OUTSIDE the workload and injects them on the wire (an egress / broker proxy swaps a placeholder or phantom token for the real credential on matching outbound requests), so code running in the sandbox — e.g. an untrusted agent — never sees or can exfiltrate the real key. Distinct from secrets-management (storage + injection INTO the workload as env vars/files — the workload holds the secret) and from egress-controls (outbound allow/deny POLICY; a product can have an allowlist without injecting credentials, and vice versa).
Partially supported
Preinstalled coding agentThe platform installs and launches a THIRD-PARTY coding agent (a harnesses.yml entry — Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi ...) inside a workspace/sandbox it provisions, with the agent's auth wired in (your own account or API key), so you start an agent session rather than an empty box. Distinct from built-in-agent (a FIRST-PARTY agent the vendor ships) and from harnesses[] (which records that a harness CAN target the product, not that the product runs it for you).
Not assessed

Data 0/1

First-party databasePlatform-provided managed database.
Not supported
Database branchingCopy-on-write branch of a DATABASE (schema + data) as a dev-lifecycle primitive — branch your data like code, usually instant via a metadata operation. Distinct from snapshots-forks (forks a running compute INSTANCE / VM state) and from preview-environments (a full per-PR environment that may USE a DB branch). For a data product a CoW branch maps HERE, not to snapshots-forks.
Not applicable
Vector searchFirst-class storage, indexing, and similarity search of vector embeddings — a native vector type/index or a managed vector DB. The data-layer primitive for RAG / semantic retrieval.
Not applicable
Ephemeral instant DB (no-signup)Provision a working, usable instance via a single command / HTTP call with NO account, signup, or card — typically time-boxed (expires unless claimed). A zero-onboarding path an agent can hit directly.
Not applicable

Platform & operations 0/6

Scheduled tasksCron / scheduled job primitive.
Not supported
Durable workflowsDurable execution / long-running workflow primitive.
Not supported
Preview environmentsA full EPHEMERAL environment spun up per PR / branch — compute + addons + (often) a DB branch — torn down on merge. More than preview-urls (which is just a shareable URL for one deploy).
Not supported
Built-in observabilityFirst-party metrics / logs / tracing / APM / profiling included in the platform (no third-party stack required to see what a workload is doing).
Not supported
Managed CI/CD runnersPlatform-hosted, drop-in CI/CD runner VMs (GitHub Actions / GitLab), typically faster and cheaper than the CI vendor's own hosted runners, billed per runner-minute; isolated + ephemeral per job. Distinct from git-deploy (push-to-deploy of an APP) and scheduled-tasks (cron) — this is managed CI COMPUTE you point your existing pipelines at.
Not supported
Project template marketplaceA marketplace / gallery of prebuilt PROJECT STARTER templates (apps or websites) a user clones or launches a new project from and then customises — the "start from a template" surface of a builder / PaaS. Distinct from sandbox-templates (a COMPUTE base IMAGE you fork runtime INSTANCES from — Dockerfile / OCI), from app-builder (the prompt-to-app GENERATION surface — a product can have both), and from one-click OSS-app catalogues / helm-addon-marketplace (deploy a FINISHED app as-is, not a starter you build on).
Not supported

Organisation & security 2/6

Built-in authPlatform-provided authentication / IAM for workloads.
Not supported
SSO / SAMLEnterprise single sign-on.
Not supported
Secrets managementFirst-class secrets storage / injection.
Supported
TeamsMulti-user team accounts.
Not supported
SharingShare a running workload/resource via link (optionally gated).
Not supported
BYOCRuns inside the customer's own cloud account.
Not applicable
Deploy into customers' VPCsA SaaS vendor uses the platform to deploy and operate ITS software inside ITS CUSTOMERS' cloud accounts / VPCs (nested or "customer BYOC"), managed from the vendor's control plane. Distinct from byoc (your own workloads in your own cloud account).
Not assessed
Workload identityThe platform gives each workload its own verifiable identity (OIDC token, SPIFFE SVID, cloud IAM federation) that it exchanges for short-lived credentials, so no long-lived static secret is stored or injected. Distinct from secrets-management (stores / injects static secrets) and credential-injection-proxy (swaps real secrets in on the wire).
Not assessed
Self-host / OSS coreOpen-source core that can be self-hosted.
Supported

03 Agent readiness Pre-login surface · counts, not a grade

Can an agent read it?

parse-ability · docs, metadata, machine-readable surfaces

5/10

4 full · 1 partial · 50% of applicable checks

  • llms.txt
    Not supported
  • llms-full.txt
    Not supported
  • robots.txt AI policy
    Partially supported
  • JSON-LD
    Not supported
  • Sitemap
    Not supported
  • Meta tags
    Supported
  • Markdown negotiation
    Not supported
  • Content efficiency
    Supported
  • Docs discoverable
    Supported
  • Machine-readable pricing
    Not applicable
  • No anti-bot wall
    Supported

Can an agent drive it?

act-ability · APIs, SDKs, MCP, credentials, webhooks

1/9

1 full · 0 partial · 11% of applicable checks

  • Public API
    Not supported
  • OpenAPI spec
    Not supported
  • MCP server
    Not supported
  • SDK packages
    Not supported
  • Auth documented
    Not supported
  • Self-serve credentials
    Not applicable
  • Webhooks
    Not supported
  • CLI tool
    Supported
  • Error model
    Not supported
  • Rate limits documented
    Not applicable
  • Agent config files
    Not supported

04 Coding harnesses Which agents and IDEs are documented to run here

Advertised integrations 2

  • Claude Code Anthropic
    Supported

    Claude Code is a first-class pre-installed + pre-wired managed agent (official marketplace, curated plugin set, auto permission mode, dedicated `machine claude` command).

  • Codex CLI OpenAI
    Supported

    Codex ships pre-installed in the base image alongside Claude Code (no dedicated `machine codex` command; run it via `machine ssh` / `machine run`).

Plausible compatibility 13

Derived, not stored: the product passes SSH access, so any CLI coding agent is installable inside it. This is plausible compatibility, not a supported integration.

  • Aider
  • Amp
  • Antigravity
  • Devin
  • Droid
  • Gemini CLI
  • Goose
  • Hermes Agent
  • Kilo Code
  • Kiro CLI
  • OpenCode
  • Pi
  • Qwen Code

05 Compliance & regions Standards held, with ordinal rigor; never a score

Certifications held 0

No attestations found on the public surface. Empty means nothing is advertised, after checking, not that nothing was checked.

Regions —

No region list captured.

Legal

Terms of service

06 Open source MIT · fetched by machine, not quoted from marketing

Licence & repository

Licence
MITOSI
Primary language
Python
Stars
15
Forks
0
Created
13 May 2026
Archived
No
github.com

Activity

Last commit
20 Jul 2026
Latest release
v0.2.4 · 1 Jul 2026
Issues open / closed
0 / 0

8 tagged releases from v0.1.1 (2026-05-23) to v0.2.4 (2026-07-01) — a burst of v0.1.x/v0.2.x in late May–early June then v0.2.4 in July; active early-stage / pre-1.0. Observation, not a graded velocity.

Fetched via gh on 25 Sep 2026.

Self-hosting

Methods
package-managersource-build
You operate
—

MIT; self-host is the ONLY way to run it (no hosted tier). PRIMARY install is Homebrew — `brew install katspaugh/machine/machine` (the formula pulls in `lima` >=2.0 and `[email protected]`); also a git-clone DEV MODE (`~/Sites/machine/bin/machine`) and a NIX FLAKE (`nix profile install github:katspaugh/machine`, pins its own Lima + Python). HARD host requirements: macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer, Apple Silicon OR Intel; VMs boot through Lima's `vz` driver (Apple's Virtualization framework), so macOS is the ONLY supported host — Linux and Windows hosts WON'T WORK. Guests are Ubuntu 24.04 (arm64/amd64 to match the CPU). Prerequisites: an SSH key served by an agent the VM can forward (macOS Keychain or the 1Password agent), registered as a GitHub signing key; host git user.name/user.email set. `machine doctor` preflights. No external service deps — self-host cost = free under MIT + your own Mac + your own LLM subscription/keys for the pre-installed agents.

Documentation signals 6/8

  • SupportedQuickstart
  • SupportedAPI reference
  • SupportedSelf-host guide
  • SupportedChangelog
  • Not supportedOpenAPI
  • Not supportedllms.txt
  • SupportedExamples
  • SupportedArchitecture doc

07 Company & presence Facts only, not scored

Company

Headquarters
Not disclosed
Founded
Project 2026 (repo created 2026-05-13); maintainer `katspaugh` on GitHub since 2010-08-31
Team size
Solo / individual (maintainer `katspaugh`)
Hiring
n/a — individual open-source project (no careers page)

Notable people

  • katspaugh (GitHub user since 2010)

Activity

Last release
v0.2.4 (2026-07-01); 8 tagged releases total since 2026-05-23 github.com
Last blog post
n/a — no blog (a long-form 'Sandboxing Claude Code' guide exists at /sandboxing-claude-code/ but is undated content, not a blog feed)

Presence 3

Links found on the public surface scanned; not an exhaustive search.

08 Sources & method How this entry was produced

Public surface only

Everything here was read from runmachine.dev's unauthenticated pages, docs, pricing and repository on 25 Sep 2026. Nothing behind a login was used.

Statuses, not scores

Capabilities are pass, partial or fail against a written rubric (features v18). “Not assessed” means the scan predates the key.

Confidence is separate

Each fact carries its own confidence. Low-confidence facts are shown, never hidden, so you can weigh them.

Schema
scan v5
Features registry
v18
Keys tracked today
61
Assessed on this entry
55
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Where Do I Run This © 2026counts, not grades · public pages only