apple/container: A tool for creating and running Linux containers using lightweight virtual machines on a Mac. It is written in Swift, and optimized for Apple silicon.

apple/container is a Swift tool for creating and running Linux containers as lightweight virtual machines on a Mac
It is optimized for Apple silicon and requires a Mac with Apple silicon to run
The tool consumes and produces OCI-compatible container images, so it can use standard registries and other OCI apps
It relies on the Containerization Swift package for low-level container, image, and process management
container is supported on macOS 26 and older macOS versions are not supported
Installation is done via a signed installer package from the GitHub releases page and places files under /usr/local
After installation, the system service is started with `container system start`
Upgrades and downgrades require stopping the existing container first with `container system stop`
A downgrade requires uninstalling first, and the `-k` flag keeps user data while `-d` removes it
The project is under active development and minor version releases may include breaking changes until version 1.0.0

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