macos-development-vm-workflow

macos-development-vm-workflow is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from gaelic-ghost/socket. It costs 48 tokens per session (942 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A workflow for preparing clean, repeatable macOS development virtual machines on Apple silicon. A virtual machine is an isolated computer environment running inside another computer.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to test macOS versions, installers, signing, privacy controls, Gatekeeper, system protections, updates, and native persistence in disposable or persistent guests.
Why use it?
It keeps operating-system images, virtual hardware, disks, saved states, identities, and test evidence separate so environments can be reproduced or reset safely.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the apple-dev-skills plugin — 65 skills, 2 MCP servers shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-development-vm-workflow
Any agent
npx skills add gaelic-ghost/socket --skill macos-development-vm-workflow
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gaelic-ghost/socket

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install apple-dev-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 65 skills, 2 MCP servers.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for macos-development-vm-workflow

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-development-vm-workflow.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-development-vm-workflow)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-development-vm-workflow"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-development-vm-workflow.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 48 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 942 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00048 $0.00942
Opus 5 $0.00024 $0.00471
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00188
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00094

Measured yesterday against content hash b881e5df14cb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

macos-development-vm-workflow scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/apple-dev-skills/skills/macos-development-vm-workflow/SKILL.md · 67 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 67 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

macOS Development VM Workflow

Purpose

Prepare a reproducible macOS guest while keeping restore images, identity, disks, saved state, clones, integrations, and exported evidence as separate lifecycle artifacts.

When To Use

  • Use for clean macOS releases, installers, updates, signing, entitlements, quarantine, Gatekeeper, XProtect, TCC, SIP-enabled behavior, LaunchServices, and native persistence.
  • Use after custom host implementation or with an existing documented VM manager.
  • Use for development guests and benign security fixtures; security controls still require prepare-isolated-analysis-lab for untrusted execution.

Single-Path Workflow

  1. Consume the virtualization shape record.
  2. Verify Apple silicon host, host build, current framework/tool docs, restore-image support, guest build, storage, memory, and installation time budget.
  3. Record each artifact using macOS VM artifact lifecycle: restore image, hardware model, machine identifier, auxiliary storage, disk, bundle metadata, saved state, clone, and evidence export.
  4. Build or verify a compatible Mac platform, boot loader, disk, CPU/memory, graphics/display, network, input, and entropy configuration; validate before installation or boot.
  5. Install with the documented restore-image flow and preserve exact progress/errors. Do not invent or duplicate Mac identity artifacts.
  6. Configure guest purpose and integrations. Directory sharing, clipboard, audio input, USB, Apple account, iCloud, developer account, signing identities, browser profiles, and network are opt-in.
  7. Establish a clean baseline, then choose named development/update checkpoints or disposable clones using only lifecycle operations the selected tool actually supports.
  8. Validate guest build/architecture, SIP and relevant controls, network/shares, reboot, toolchain, target behavior, evidence export, and reset.
  9. Record VM artifacts and physical-hardware gaps that may affect the conclusion.

Read the full file on GitHub · 67 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 67 lines · 48 tokens per session scan A b881e5df14cb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

macos-development-vm-workflow is a skill published in the GitHub repository gaelic-ghost/socket (7 stars, last pushed 9d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 48 tokens to every session and 942 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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