Make iterating on a Firecracker-friendly Void guest practical without replacing the Debian default image path.
Add local Void rootfs build/register/verify plumbing, a language-agnostic dev package baseline, and guest SSH/work-disk hardening so new images use the runtime bundle key, keep a normal root bash environment, and repair stale nested /root layouts on restart.
Replace the guest PING/PONG responder with an HTTP /healthz agent over vsock, rename the runtime bundle and config surface from ping helper to agent while still accepting the legacy keys, and route the post-SSH reminder through the new vm.health path.
Validated with GOCACHE=/tmp/banger-gocache go test ./..., make build, bash -n customize.sh make-rootfs-void.sh, and git diff --check.
Beat VM create wall time without changing VM semantics.
Generate a work-seed ext4 sidecar during image builds and rootfs rebuilds, then clone and resize that seed for each new VM instead of rebuilding /root from scratch. Plumb the new seed artifact through config, runtime metadata, store state, runtime-bundle defaults, doctor checks, and default-image reconciliation so older images still fall back cleanly.
Add a daemon TAP pool to keep idle bridge-attached devices warm, expose stage timing in lifecycle logs, add a create/SSH benchmark script plus Make target, and teach verify.sh that tap-pool-* devices are reusable capacity rather than cleanup leaks.
Validated with go test ./..., make build, ./verify.sh, and make bench-create ARGS="--runs 2".
Multi-VM delete exposed two separate regressions: NAT teardown was still running after stopped VMs had already dropped their tap metadata, and the store was relying on one-off SQLite pragmas instead of configuring every pooled connection.
Skip NAT cleanup when the runtime no longer has the network handles needed to identify rules, and move the SQLite profile into the DSN so WAL, busy timeouts, foreign keys, and the other connection-scoped settings apply consistently across the pool. Keep the write mutex in place for concurrent mutations, and update the daemon/store tests to use valid image fixtures now that foreign key enforcement is real.
Validated with go test ./... and make build.
Make host-integrated VM features fit a standard Go extension path instead of adding more one-off branches through vm.go. This is the enabling refactor for future work like shared mounts, not the /work feature itself.
Add a daemon capability pipeline plus a structured guest-config builder, then move the existing /root work-disk mount, built-in DNS, and NAT wiring onto those hooks. Generalize Firecracker drive config at the same time so later storage features can extend machine setup without another hardcoded path.
Add banger doctor on top of the shared readiness checks, update the docs to describe the new architecture, and cover the new seams with guest-config, capability, report, CLI, and full go test verification. Also verify make build and a real ./banger doctor run on the host.
