Performance contract
Stacked QEMU optimizations
The backend builds a single auditable command: Apple Hypervisor.framework for arm64 guests, GICv3, virtio-gpu with blob scanout and tuned host framebuffer memory, EDID-driven resolutions, NVMe multi-queue, qcow2 L2 cache hints, and ioeventfd on virtio queues — each layer documented in code so you can see why the VM feels responsive.
01 HVF acceleration — privileged guest code runs on the hypervisor, not soft-emulated.02 GICv3 — lowers IRQ exit latency versus emulated GICv2 on Apple Silicon hosts.03 virtio-gpu + blob + max_hostmem — fewer framebuffer copies; smoother UI inside Windows.04 NVMe num_queues=4 — parallel submission paths from multiple vCPUs.05 virtio + ioeventfd — kicks off the QEMU main loop hot path where possible.
Product
What ships in the app
Create VMs from ISO with presets (light / recommended / pro), adjust cores RAM and disk, enforce license acknowledgment, reset NVRAM vars, stream logs, and dependencies checks (QEMU, swtpm) — the boring ops made explicit.
Positioning
Why it exists
Subscription desktop virtualization is a tax on cross-platform developers. BridgeVM is the opposite posture: a local, inspectable stack — Rust for correctness around process and disk lifecycle, React for a fast control surface, Tauri for a real macOS .app.
Crate graph
What the Rust side is made of
Pulled straight from src-tauri/Cargo.toml and modules under src-tauri/src/ — this is the kind of systems surface I build when product meets bare metal.
- Async & I/O
- tokio for spawning QEMU/swtpm, waiting on process lifelines, and async file work.
- Desktop IPC
- Tauri 2 commands with explicit
rename_all = "camelCase" so JS ↔ Rust contracts stay honest.
- Model & errors
- serde / serde_json for VM records; thiserror for structured
BridgeVmError paths.
- Identity & time
- uuid VM ids; chrono for created / started timestamps in config.
- Host integration
- which to resolve
qemu-system-aarch64, qemu-img, swtpm; nix to SIGKILL orphan swtpm after crashes; trash to delete bundles via Finder semantics.
- Observability
- tracing + tracing-subscriber with env filters — production-friendly logs from the harness, not
println! noise.
Modules
Layout in the repo
Engineering breadth beyond “call qemu”: firmware discovery with OnceLock resource dir, secure-boot vs non-secure EDK2 pairs, VM registry, validation of ISO path and resource presets, and TPM state directories inside each bundle.
Notable Rust modules: qemu_command (full argv builder + perf commentary), qemu_process, vm_bundle, vm_registry, vm_config, firmware, tpm (lockfile / orphan reaping), guest_agent, disk, logs, validation, tauri_commands.