anyvm-skill

AI agent skill for anyvm — run, manage, and debug BSD, Illumos, Linux, Android, GNU Hurd, and Plan 9 VMs with natural language.

Works with Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and other AI coding assistants that support skill/instruction files.

What it does

This skill teaches your AI assistant how to use anyvm, so you can say things like:

• "Start a FreeBSD 15.0 VM with 4GB RAM"
• "Run my test suite on OpenBSD"
• "Spin up an Ubuntu 24.04 VM and build my project"
• "Test my code on Ubuntu s390x and powerpc64"
• "Run my tests on openEuler loongarch64"
• "Boot a BlissOS (Android) VM and show me the desktop"
• "Spin up a GNU Hurd or Plan 9 VM to try it out"
• "Debug why the VM can't connect to the network"
• "Set up a Solaris VM with port 8080 forwarded"
• "Share my project folder into a NetBSD VM"

The assistant will know the correct commands, flags, troubleshooting steps, and best practices — no need to memorize the CLI.

Supported VMs

Architecture columns: x86_64 / aarch64 / riscv64 / powerpc64 / sparc64 / s390x / loongarch64.

Guest OS	x86_64	aarch64	riscv64	ppc64	sparc64	s390x	loongarch64
FreeBSD (12.4–15.0, desktop: xfce/gnome/kde6)	✅	✅	✅	✅
OpenBSD (7.3–7.9, desktops: xfce/gnome/kde6/mate/lxqt/lumina/enlightenment)	✅	✅	✅		✅
NetBSD	✅	✅	✅		✅
DragonFlyBSD	✅
MidnightBSD	✅
GhostBSD (desktop: MATE/xfce/gershwin)	✅
Solaris	✅
OmniOS	✅
OpenIndiana	✅
Tribblix	✅
Haiku	✅
Ubuntu (e.g. 24.04)	✅	✅	✅	✅		✅
openEuler (22.03-LTS-SP4 / 24.03-LTS-SP4 / 25.09)	✅	✅	✅				✅
BlissOS (Android-x86; 14/15/16 = Android 11/12L/13)	✅
GNU Hurd (Debian; also 32-bit i386)	✅
Plan 9 (9front; telnet + 9P, not SSH)	✅

Installation

Claude Code

# Clone to your skills directory
git clone https://github.com/anyvm-org/anyvm-skill.git ~/.claude/skills/anyvm

Or add it as a project skill:

cd your-project
git clone https://github.com/anyvm-org/anyvm-skill.git .claude/skills/anyvm

GitHub Copilot

Copy SKILL.md to your repository as .github/copilot-instructions.md, or append its contents to your existing instructions file.

Other AI Assistants

Copy the contents of SKILL.md into your assistant's system prompt or instruction file.

What the skill covers

VM Lifecycle

• Starting VMs with any supported OS, version, and architecture (x86_64, aarch64, riscv64, powerpc64, sparc64, s390x, loongarch64)
• Desktop releases (FreeBSD/OpenBSD/GhostBSD graphical variants) and the BlissOS Android desktop
• Running commands inside VMs via SSH (with auto-generated SSH aliases); Plan 9 uses a telnet console instead
• Detach/background and console/foreground modes
• Snapshot mode for ephemeral testing
• Local --qcow2 images and pinned --builder versions

Networking

• SSH port forwarding (auto-assigned host port) and named SSH aliases
• Custom TCP/UDP port mapping
• Public access binding (--public, --public-ssh, --public-vnc)
• Network card model selection (--nc)
• IPv6 configuration

Shared Folders

• Host-to-guest directory sharing
• Multiple sync backends: rsync, sshfs, nfs (bundled user-space server), sys-nfs, scp (or off)
• Guest-aware defaults (BlissOS = scp, Plan 9 = 9P, Hurd = no sshfs)

Display & Console

• Built-in VNC Web UI
• Remote VNC tunnels (Cloudflare, Localhost.run, Pinggy, Serveo)
• Serial console access and QEMU monitor exposure
• Custom resolution and VGA settings

Acceleration & Boot

• Automatic KVM/HVF/WHPX, or forced software emulation (--tcg)
• Configurable boot timeouts (--boot-timeout-sec)
• Optional host PMU passthrough (--enable-pmu)

Troubleshooting

• VM boot failures and timeouts
• SSH connection issues
• Guest networking problems
• Shared folder sync issues
• VNC Web UI debugging
• Performance tuning

File Structure

anyvm-skill/
├── SKILL.md      # The skill definition (main file)
├── README.md     # This file
└── LICENSE        # MIT License

Requirements

The skill itself has no dependencies. To actually run VMs, you need:

• anyvm — single Python file, no pip install needed
• QEMU — the VM hypervisor
• Python 3 — to run anyvm.py

Examples

Once the skill is installed, your AI assistant can handle conversations like:

You: I need to test my C library on FreeBSD and OpenBSD

Assistant: (starts a FreeBSD VM, compiles and runs tests, then does the same on OpenBSD, reports results)

You: The VM's network isn't working

Assistant: (checks ifconfig inside the VM, verifies DNS, tests gateway connectivity, suggests fixes)

You: Set up a FreeBSD desktop I can access from my browser

Assistant: (starts FreeBSD with KDE6, configures VNC Web UI, provides the URL)

You: Does my build still work on Ubuntu s390x and powerpc64?

Assistant: (boots Ubuntu under QEMU for each big-endian/IBM-Z arch, builds and runs the test suite, reports per-arch results)

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome at github.com/anyvm-org/anyvm-skill.

License

MIT