Is it possible to use Lima without limactl?

[rajch]

I would like to create, start, stop and delete Lima VMs from my own application. I can do this by running limactl as a child process, but do I also have the option of directly using the lima packages, and calling appropriate functions or methods?

I have been able to create machines in this way, but am stuck on starting them. It fails with the message that the user-v2 network socket refused connection.

[AkihiroSuda]

but do I also have the option of directly using the lima packages, and calling appropriate functions or methods?

No. Unsupported.

If something is missing in the CLI to satisfy the requirement of your application, please open a GitHub issue.

[rajch]

Thank you.

[jandubois]

While this is not supported, as @AkihiroSuda already answered, it is mostly possible (the exception is that you still need to run the hostagent via limactl).

I do have an app that does exactly this (which is why I refactored cmd/limactl/start.go logic into instance/start.go), but haven't gotten around to dealing with the host agent part yet. I will eventually get back to this, to make it possible, even if it continues to be officially unsupported.

The "unsupported" bit mostly means that we cannot make any guarantees that we won't break compatibility for apps that directly call into Lima packages. So every new Lima release might break your application. But as long as you are fine with that, it is open source, and you can use it however you want to. 😄

Building on top of the CLI is certainly much more robust because we try hard to not break backwards compatibility.

[rajch]

I refactored cmd/limactl/start.go logic into instance/start.go

I noticed this, and was initially very happy when I discovered the instance.Start function - and then saw the limactl parameter 😦

Building on top of the CLI is certainly much more robust because we try hard to not break backwards compatibility.

I found several projects which use lima like that. I do the same thing for VirtualBox and Hyper-V: since lima is also written in Go, I had hoped for once I wouldn't need to. Oh well.

So every new Lima release might break your application. But as long as you are fine with that, it is open source, and you can use it however you want to. 😄

In time, I may do just that. Maybe even submit a PR for a lima "API". For now, I need to get that other project finished. Will go with building with the CLI for now.