I've been building a zero-config CLI for running Home Assistant OS on Apple Silicon using Apple's native Virtualization framework. It's called havm and version 0.1.2 is now available as an early preview.
The goal is to be the simplest and most efficient way to run HA OS on a Mac. One command from nothing to a running VM — it downloads the latest HA OS release, decompresses the disk image, sets up a persistent data disk, and boots via UEFI. No manual image downloads, no Shortcuts, no launchd plist wrangling.
Requirements
- macOS 27 Golden Gate (currently in developer beta)
- Apple Silicon Mac
Earlier macOS versions are not supported — the Virtualization framework APIs used for USB passthrough require macOS 27.
What works
- One-command setup: havm run downloads and boots HA OS automatically
- USB accessory passthrough via a macOS menu bar item. I'm using this with a ZBT-2 coordinator. Devices are persisted across reboots and hot-attached to the running VM.
- Bridge networking so the VM gets its own IP on your LAN (NAT also available)
- Graceful shutdown: REST API, then SSH port 22222, then SSH port 22, then force-stop
- SSH key import: add your public key via config and HA OS imports it on boot for root access on port 22222
- Stable MAC address and machine identifier across reboots
- Import from UTM: havm import-utm migrates an existing UTM-based HA VM into havm in one command (only supported for VMs using Apple Virtualization, not QEMU)
- Runs as a Homebrew service with brew services start havm
Install
brew install ingmarstein/havm/havm
havm run
The release binary is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it passes Gatekeeper without manual overrides.
What this is (and isn't)
This is an early preview. It runs on a macOS beta. There will be rough edges. I'm running it at home successfully — I imported my existing UTM VM, and it's been stable as my daily Home Assistant host. But you should back up your HA instance before trying it, and I wouldn't recommend it on a production Mac yet.
The project is open source (MIT) at GitHub - IngmarStein/havm: Zero-config CLI for running Home Assistant OS on Apple Silicon using the native Virtualization framework. macOS 27+. · GitHub and will always remain free and open source. Feedback, bug reports, and contributions are welcome.
