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Apple Silicon macOS & Linux VMs — fully drivable by AI agents over MCP.

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Bushel is a Swift CLI + daemon for spinning up macOS and Linux VMs on Apple Silicon. What makes it different: 24 MCP tools that let Claude (or any MCP client) drive a VM end-to-end — start, snapshot, exec a shell, see the screen, click, type. A maintained fork of lume carrying fixes ahead of upstream.

Quick start

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orzelig/bushel/main/scripts/install.sh)"

Installs bushel to ~/.local/bin, registers a LaunchAgent serving the daemon on 127.0.0.1:7777, and exits. No telemetry. No cloud. Apple Silicon only.

Verify:

bushel host-status                  # confirms daemon is up + Virtualization.framework available
open http://127.0.0.1:7777/         # web dashboard

Pull and start a macOS VM:

bushel pull macos-sequoia-vanilla:latest my-vm
bushel start my-vm

Tip

Have Claude Code open? Skip the install command. Just tell Claude:

Install bushel from https://github.com/orzelig/bushel — read INSTALL_FOR_CLAUDE.md first.

Claude will fetch INSTALL_FOR_CLAUDE.md, run the installer, and wire bushel into itself as an MCP server in one step. Restart Claude and say "Start using bushel."

What you get

CLI	bushel create / clone / start / stop / exec / pull / snapshot / set … — full lume CLI, plus extras
Local daemon	LaunchAgent on 127.0.0.1:7777. Loopback-only. Restart-safe
Web dashboard	Open the daemon URL. List, create, clone, edit metadata, watch pull progress, start/stop. Refreshes every 5s
Browser VNC	http://127.0.0.1:7777/vnc/<name> — noVNC viewer with clipboard bridge. No Screen Sharing.app
MCP server	24 tools for AI agents: lifecycle, snapshots, file transfer, screen capture / click / type / paste, exec, pull
Snapshots & clones	APFS copy-on-write — almost free. Safe "snapshot + clone" pattern for iterating on Setup Assistant automation
Per-VM metadata	Creator / description / owner annotations stored sidecar-style, editable in the dashboard
Auto-update	Opt-in. Daily check, notification on availability, SHA-256 verification, codesigned binary, never auto-applies

Use with AI

The MCP integration is one command:

bushel claude-setup

Detects Claude Desktop and Claude Code on your machine, registers bushel as an MCP server in each. Idempotent. Use --dry-run to preview, --print-only for a manual-paste snippet.

Restart Claude, then say "Start using bushel." Claude can now:

• Manage VMs — list, get info, create, clone, delete, start, stop, wait-for-boot
• Pull macOS or Linux images from the OCI registry (with progress polling)
• Exec shell commands in a running guest, get stdout/stderr/exit
• Transfer files in and out via lume_get_file / lume_put_file
• Snapshot before risky changes, restore on failure — fully scriptable
• Drive the GUI — lume_screen_capture (PNG of the desktop), lume_screen_click (x,y or by image template), lume_screen_type, lume_screen_paste
• Open VNC — lume_open_vnc returns the noVNC URL for a human to look at

That last cluster is what makes bushel different from upstream lume: an AI agent can see and interact with the VM screen, not just shell into it.

Cheat sheet

bushel list                                    # all VMs
bushel pull macos-tahoe-vanilla:latest tahoe   # download image
bushel create my-vm --os macos --ipsw latest --unattended
bushel start my-vm                             # boot in background
bushel exec my-vm "sw_vers"                    # run command in guest
bushel snapshot create my-vm before-test       # cheap APFS snapshot
bushel clone my-vm experiment-1                # COW clone
bushel set my-vm --disk-size 200               # grow disk (in GB)
bushel stop my-vm                              # graceful shutdown
bushel delete experiment-1                     # remove a VM
bushel update                                  # upgrade bushel itself
bushel update --check-only                     # just check, no swap

Default credentials in unattended-built VMs: lume / lume (baked into the image, not the binary).

Build from source:

swift build -c release
.build/arm64-apple-macosx/release/bushel --help

Menu-bar status icon (open dashboard, see VM count, start/stop daemon): pass --menubar to install.sh. Uninstall: bash <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orzelig/bushel/main/scripts/uninstall.sh) — --purge also deletes ~/.lume data.

Compatibility with lume

Bushel renames the binary only. Everything else is wire-compatible:

	bushel	upstream lume
Daemon port	127.0.0.1:7777	same
HTTP routes	/lume/vms, /lume/pull, …	same
Data layout	~/.lume/, ~/.config/lume/	same
MCP tool names	lume_*	same
Image registry	OCI w/ org.trycua.lume.* annotations	same
LaunchAgent label	io.github.orzelig.bushel.daemon	com.trycua.lume_daemon

Switching to bushel finds your existing lume VMs. Side-by-side install works, but only one daemon can hold port 7777 — disable lume's LaunchAgent first.

Contributing

Bushel is a partner on GiveBackAI — you can donate unused Claude quota to fix bushel issues. Browse issues labeled givebackai-ready for self-contained picks.

For bugs and feature requests: open an issue. For local development: CONTRIBUTING.md and Development.md.

Documentation

• INSTALL_FOR_CLAUDE.md — what Claude reads when you ask it to install bushel
• UPSTREAM-STATUS.md — vendored PRs, evaluation candidates, known divergences
• Development.md — local dev setup
• Upstream lume docs — bushel is CLI-compatible; substitute bushel for lume

Relationship to upstream

Bushel is a maintained fork. We track upstream lume and pull in important developments — bug fixes and meaningful improvements — as they appear. Bushel ships fixes ahead of upstream's review cadence. If upstream merges a PR we've already vendored, the bushel commit reconciles to a no-op rebase. For the current vendored set and open evaluations, see UPSTREAM-STATUS.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.md. Copyright © 2025 Cua AI, Inc. Bushel modifications are also MIT.