Quickstart

This walks through creating a VM, configuring it, provisioning it, and opening a shell inside it.

1. Scaffold a VM

dvm new app           # writes ~/.config/dvm/vms/app/{config.sh,setup.sh}
                      # and scaffolds ~/.config/dvm/config.sh on first run

2. Edit the config

Resource and user settings live in the global ~/.config/dvm/config.sh and apply to every VM. The per-VM config only holds what this VM needs to differ on:

~/.config/dvm/vms/app/config.sh

DVM_MEMORY=4                       # more RAM than the global default for this VM
DVM_PORTS=(3000:3000 5173:5173)    # extra forwards on top of Lima's automatic ones

See the config reference for every variable.

3. Edit the setup script

The setup script runs inside the guest during dvm sync. Install whatever your project needs here:

~/.config/dvm/vms/app/setup.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -Eeuo pipefail

sudo dnf5 install -y git ripgrep fd-find tmux

Browse Examples for copy/paste setup snippets.

4. Build and enter

DVM_DRY_RUN=1 dvm sync app   # preview the Lima argv + setup order, no Lima contact
dvm sync app                 # create/start the VM and run setup scripts
dvm sh app                   # open a shell as the dev user

When you’re done, stop or destroy the VM:

dvm stop app
dvm rm app --yes             # add --config to also delete ~/.config/dvm/vms/app

See the Commands reference for the full CLI.