devvm
devvm is a free, open-source developer tool that gives each project folder its own isolated virtual machine, with the project's toolchain ready for a developer or coding agent. It is designed to keep project code and agents inside a VM boundary while keeping host credentials and unrelated files out of reach.
At a Glance
- Individual developers
- Software teams using local development environments
- Developers and teams experimenting with coding agents
- Security-conscious users who want local VM isolation for repositories and tooling
- +1 more
AI Tools by devvm
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devvm
Isolated VM Sandboxes for Agents
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Latest News
devvm 0.1.0 released; first release of the per-project isolated VM tool
Fixed opencode tool backend selection so mise uses GitHub releases instead of an unavailable npm package
Changed the documentation deployment workflow to deploy from main when documentation changes
Added release-key documentation and instructions for checking the install script
Products & Services
An MIT-licensed command-line tool that creates or opens one isolated Lima-backed VM per project folder. It detects project toolchains, runs coding agents inside the VM, mounts only the project read-write by default, supports repository clones, forwards ports, and provides VM, image, network, secret, agent, SSH/editor and history management commands.
Market Position
devvm positions itself as a local, per-project VM sandbox rather than a hosted development environment: it combines Lima-backed VMs, automatic toolchain detection, coding-agent setup, network policy and host-side secret handling behind a single command. Its differentiators are project-by-project isolation, agent-aware credential handling and a reviewable --clone workflow; the documentation also supports starting from container images and devcontainer.json, giving it overlap with container-based developer environments.
Leadership
Founders
CJ Reynolds (w3cj)
Software developer, educator and maker based in the Denver area; creator of Coding Garden and a video creator for Syntax. The devvm GitHub organization identifies @w3cj as its public organization member and repository code owner.
Founding Story
The project was started to make running untrusted project code, supply-chain dependencies and coding agents in a sandbox simple enough to use with one command. Its initial vision is one VM for every project, with sensible isolation, network controls, host-side secret handling and a ready-to-use developer environment.
Business Model
Revenue Model
Free and open-source software distributed under the MIT license. The public project documents Homebrew and install-script distribution; no paid subscription, usage-based charge or commercial tier is described.
Target Markets
- Individual developers
- Software teams using local development environments
- Developers and teams experimenting with coding agents
- Security-conscious users who want local VM isolation for repositories and tooling
- macOS and Linux developers on arm64 or x86_64 hosts
- Running coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex and opencode without installing them on the host
- Developing projects with automatically detected language toolchains
- Running untrusted repositories, installs, tests and project code inside a VM boundary
- Reviewable agent work on an isolated repository clone
- Local development with forwarded ports, SSH/editor access and optional desktop environments
- Projects that need configurable network allowlists and host-side secret protection