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Install Vectis

Requirements, installation, the background service and the command line tools.

Requirements

  • A Mac with Apple Silicon, running macOS 15 or later. Intel Macs are not supported. A macOS 27 guest needs macOS 27 on the Mac.
  • Free disk space for the guests you prepare, on the internal disk or an external drive:
Guest Free space to prepare Notes
Ubuntu 24.04 8 GiB or more Grows as software is installed
macOS 27 70 GiB, or 40 GiB with your own restore image Apple’s restore image is downloaded unless you provide one
Windows 11 (experimental) 30 GiB or more Needs your own installation media and QEMU
  • Every running VM also needs space for its copy of the disk. Copies share unchanged blocks with the image, so they start small.
  • A VM may use at most 75% of the Mac’s memory, so macOS always keeps room for itself.

Install the app

  1. Download Vectis for macOS.
  2. Open the disk image and drag Vectis to Applications. Open it from there, not from the disk image.
  3. Choose Install and start service on the first screen. This registers the Vectis background service for your user, so it runs after you close the window and after you log in again.

macOS may ask you to allow Vectis in System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions. If you keep images or VMs on an external drive, macOS also asks whether Vectis may access that volume; allow it, or VMs on that drive cannot start.

Vectis keeps its state in ~/.vectis: the database, the service log and the local connection details. VM images and disks live in the folders you choose for each environment.

Command line tools

The app contains the vectis CLI and the vectis-mcp server for agents. In the app, open Diagnostics and choose Install under Command line tools. This places two small launchers in ~/.local/bin that run the tools inside the app, so they always match the installed version.

If ~/.local/bin is not on your PATH, the app tells you. Add this line to ~/.zshrc, then open a new terminal:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Check the installation:

vectis --version
vectis status --json

Updates

The app checks for new releases in the background and downloads them. When an update is ready, Restart to update appears in the sidebar. Vectis installs it only when no VM or operation is running: it stops the idle service, installs the update and starts the service again. While jobs are running, the sidebar says the update will install when they finish. The CLI and MCP server update with the app.

Uninstall

  1. In the app, open Overview, choose Stop service if idle, then Remove login service from the same menu. Or run vectis service stop --if-idle and vectis service uninstall.
  2. Delete Vectis from Applications, and ~/.local/bin/vectis and ~/.local/bin/vectis-mcp if you installed them.
  3. To remove all data, delete ~/.vectis and the image and VM folders you chose. The Mac stays listed under Macs at vectis.kerd.dev/connect as offline and receives no more jobs.

Remove the login service before deleting the app; otherwise macOS keeps trying to start a service that no longer exists.