smolmachines

smolmachines is a candidate execution backend.

The interesting fit is portable virtual machine images for scripts that need a real Linux environment but should start quickly and travel with their runtime state.

Target Shape

A future backend should keep the same Hollywood command boundary:

smolvm machine run <backend-options> -- <file> <arg>...

Persistent machines would likely use smolvm machine exec --name <machine> -- <file> <arg>.... The exact Hollywood API needs design against the smolmachines CLI before this becomes a supported backend.

Good Fit

• hermetic build tools
• stateful development machines used by CI-like scripts
• local tests that need stronger isolation than a host process

Reference:

• smol-machines/smolvm

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