CellOS Lab On OrbStack

OrbStack can run a NixOS Linux machine on macOS. That is useful for CellOS userland work: cell-agent, Docker/Moby prerequisites, workspace directories, checkout initialization, and devcontainer lifecycle commands.

It is not production validation for Firecracker. On Apple Silicon this path does not validate KVM, TAP networking, virtio-vsock, jailer behavior, kernel/initrd boot, Firecracker process launch, or snapshot semantics.

What This Validates

• NixOS CellOS module composition
• cell-agent package wiring
• Docker/Moby userland availability
• workspace and log directory shape
• GuestService.InitializeWorkspace request shape
• devcontainer execution-plan rendering

Nix Evaluation

nix flake check --extra-experimental-features 'nix-command flakes' --allow-import-from-derivation

The flake includes an orbstack-cellos-lab NixOS configuration for evaluation. Build/apply commands depend on the OrbStack NixOS machine setup.

Lab Flow

1. Create a NixOS machine in OrbStack.
2. Enable flakes inside that machine if needed.
3. Build or apply the nix/hosts/orbstack-cellos-lab configuration.
4. Run cell-agent.
5. Render a workspace execution plan on the host.
6. POST that plan to the lab cell-agent endpoint.

scripts/cellos-lab-smoke.sh examples/workspaces/devcontainer-execution

CELLOS_AGENT_ENDPOINT=http://127.0.0.1:8081 \
  scripts/cellos-lab-smoke.sh examples/workspaces/devcontainer-execution

Boundary

hostmacOSworkspace plan

→

lab machineOrbStack NixOScell-agent

→

userlandMoby / Dockerdevcontainer lifecycle

Lab boundarydoes not validate Firecracker or KVM