🐚 Hermit — Lightweight Virtual Machine Environments for Developers

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🧠 What is Hermit?

Hermit is a fast, developer-friendly CLI for creating and managing Linux-based development environments using Virtual Machines — without plugins, heavy runtimes, or complex provisioning tools.

Hermit focuses on:

• Simplicity over extensibility
• Speed over generality
• Clean developer experience over full-stack abstraction

If you have ever found Vagrant too slow, Docker too containerized, and setting up dev VMs too painful — Hermit is for you.

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⚙️ System Requirements

Requirement	Version
OS	Windows, macOS, or Linux
VirtualBox	7.1.4 (required)
Go (for development)	1.21+

➡️ Download VirtualBox 7.1.4

📥 Installation

Visit the GitHub Releases page and download the binary for your OS:

🔧 macOS / Linux

# Download the latest binary (Select from releases page depending on your system)
curl -Lo hermit https://github.com/Kodo-Robotics/hermit/releases/latest/download/hermit-linux-amd64

# Make it executable
chmod +x hermit

# Move to a directory in your PATH
sudo mv hermit /usr/local/bin/

🪟 Windows

1. Download hermit-windows-amd64.exe from the Releases page
2. Rename to hermit.exe (optional)
3. Add the directory to your PATH
4. Run Hermit via terminal: hermit

✨ Features

• 🧰 Full VM lifecycle: init, up, halt, destroy, status
• 🔐 SSH with NAT-based port forwarding
• 🌐 Dual-NIC support: always NAT + bridged/host-only
• 🧠 Human-friendly config via hermit.json
• 📦 Package and share VMs as .box files
• ⚡ Blazing fast CLI (built in Go)

📦 Try the ROS2 Box (Prebuilt)

Spin up a complete ROS2 Humble dev environment with:

✅ ROS2 Humble ✅ Codium ✅ noVNC GUI (localhost:6080)

📥 Download:

👉 ros2-humble-amd64.box (Google Drive) 👉 ros2-humble-arm64.box (Google Drive)

🔧 Usage:

hermit init ros2-humble
hermit box add ros2-humble.box
hermit up
# open http://localhost:6080 for GUI in browser

📦 Try the Dev Box (Prebuilt)

Spin up a complete Ubuntu-based dev environment with:

✅ VS Code Server (browser on :8080) ✅ Python 3, Git, Node.js, Docker ✅ SSH (vagrant@localhost:2222)

📥 Download:

👉 dev-box-amd64.box (Google Drive) 👉 dev-box-arm64.box (Google Drive)

🔧 Usage:

hermit init dev-box
hermit box add dev-box.box
hermit up
hermit ssh               # SSH access
# open http://localhost:8080 for VS Code in browser

🧙 Sample hermit.json

{
  "vm_name": "dev-box",
  "box": "dev-box",
  "memory": 2048,
  "cpus": 2,
  "network": {
    "mode": "nat",
    "forwarded_ports": [
      { "guest": 22, "host": 2222 },
      { "guest": 8080, "host": 8080 }
    ]
  }
}

❓ Why Hermit vs. Vagrant?

Metric / Feature	Hermit (Go)	Vagrant (Ruby)	Improvement with Hermit
CLI Language	Go (native binary)	Ruby	✅ No runtime required
Install Size	~15 MB	~350 MB+	✅ ~20× smaller
CLI Startup Time	~0.05s	~2.3s	✅ ~45× faster
VM Boot Time	~30–45s	~2–5 minutes	✅ 2–4× faster
Memory Usage	~500 MB (minimal)	~800 MB+	✅ Lower runtime overhead
Config Format	JSON (hermit.json)	Ruby DSL (Vagrantfile)	✅ Cleaner, language-agnostic
Networking (NAT + Bridged)	Built-in & simple	Verbose & plugin-sensitive	✅ Easier dual-NIC config
Box Packaging	hermit package	vagrant package	✅ Smaller, faster
Port Forwarding	JSON-based, automatic	Requires manual config	✅ Works out of the box
Provisioning	Planned	Supported	➖ Coming soon
Target Users	Developers & local use cases	DevOps/general provisioning	🎯 Focused & developer-friendly

🛠 Core Commands

Command	Description
hermit init	Create a new hermit.json
hermit up	Start the VM
hermit halt	Shut down the VM
hermit destroy	Unregister and optionally delete
hermit ssh	SSH into the guest
hermit status	Show VM state
hermit package	Export the current VM to .box
hermit box add	Register a downloaded .box

📦 Build Your Own .box

hermit up
hermit ssh       # install tools, setup env
hermit halt
hermit package --output my-env.box

👥 Community

We welcome ideas, feedback, and contributions:

🐛 GitHub Issues

📄 License

Apache 2.0 © 2025 Kodo-Robotics