Frontier models tend to discover a CLI by running --help, scanning
the Long description, and inferring the dominant workflow from the
examples. Today's banger help reads like a man page index — every
verb has a one-line Short and nothing else. This rewrites the
groups (banger, vm, vm workspace, image, kernel, system,
ssh-config) so each landing page answers "what is this for, what's
the 80% command, what comes next" in three to ten lines, with
runnable examples.
Also disambiguates the near-twin lifecycle commands so a model
reading the subcommand index can tell stop/kill/delete apart at a
glance:
start Start a stopped VM
stop Stop a running VM gracefully
restart Stop then start a VM
kill Force-kill a VM (use when 'vm stop' hangs)
delete Stop a VM and remove its disks (irreversible)
vm create / vm ssh / vm logs / vm show pick up Long descriptions
and examples for the same reason. No behaviour changes; help text
only.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Move the supported systemd path to two services: an owner-user bangerd for
orchestration and a narrow root helper for bridge/tap, NAT/resolver, dm/loop,
and Firecracker ownership. This removes repeated sudo from daily vm and image
flows without leaving the general daemon running as root.
Add install metadata, system install/status/restart/uninstall commands, and a
system-owned runtime layout. Keep user SSH/config material in the owner home,
lock file_sync to the owner home, and move daemon known_hosts handling out of
the old root-owned control path.
Route privileged lifecycle steps through typed privilegedOps calls, harden the
two systemd units, and rewrite smoke plus docs around the supported service
model.
Verified with make build, make test, make lint, and make smoke on the
supported systemd host path.
banger hasn't shipped a public release — every "legacy", "pre-opt-in",
"previously", "migration note", "no longer" reference in the tree is
pinning against a state no real user's install has ever been in.
That scaffolding has weight: it's a coordinate system future readers
have to decode, and it keeps dead code alive.
Removed (code):
- internal/daemon/ssh_client_config.go
- vmSSHConfigIncludeBegin / vmSSHConfigIncludeEnd constants and
every `removeManagedBlock(existing, vm...)` call they enabled
(legacy inline `Host *.vm` block scrub)
- cleanupLegacySSHConfigDir (+ its caller in syncVMSSHClientConfig)
— wiped a pre-opt-in sibling file under $ConfigDir/ssh
- sameDirOrParent + resolvePathForComparison — only ever used
by cleanupLegacySSHConfigDir
- the "also check legacy marker" fallback in
UserSSHIncludeInstalled / UninstallUserSSHInclude
- internal/store/migrations.go
- migrateDropDeadImageColumns (migration 2) + its slice entry
- dropColumnIfExists (orphaned after the above)
- addColumnIfMissing + the whole "columns added across the pre-
versioning lifetime" block at the end of migrateBaseline —
subsumed into the baseline CREATE TABLE
- `packages_path TEXT` column on the images table (the
throwaway migration 2 dropped it, but there was never any
reader)
- internal/daemon/vm.go
- vmDNSRecordName local wrapper — was justified as "avoid
pulling vmdns into every file"; three of four callers already
imported vmdns directly, so inline the one stray call
- internal/cli/cli_test.go
- TestLegacyRemovedCommandIsRejected (`tui` subcommand never
shipped)
Removed / simplified (tests):
- ssh_client_config_test.go: dropped TestSameDirOrParentHandlesSymlinks,
TestSyncVMSSHClientConfigPreservesUserKeyInLegacyDir,
TestSyncVMSSHClientConfigNarrowsCleanupToLegacyFile,
TestSyncVMSSHClientConfigLeavesUnexpectedLegacyContents,
TestInstallUserSSHIncludeMigratesLegacyInlineBlock, plus the
"legacy posture" regression strings in the remaining happy-path
test; TestUninstallUserSSHIncludeRemovesBothMarkerBlocks collapsed
to a single-block test
- migrations_test.go: dropped TestMigrateDropDeadImageColumns_AcrossInstallPaths,
TestDropColumnIfExistsIsIdempotent; TestOpenReadOnlyDoesNotRunMigrations
simplified to test against the baseline marker
Removed (docs):
- README.md "**Migration note.**" blockquote about the SSH-key path move
- docs/advanced.md parenthetical "(the old behaviour)"
Reworded (comments):
- Dropped "Previously this file also contained LogLevel DEBUG3..."
history from vm_disk.go's sshdGuestConfig doc
- Dropped "Call sites that previously read vm.Runtime.{PID,...}"
from vm_handles.go; now documents the current contract
- Dropped "Pre-v0.1 the defaults are" scaffolding in doctor_test.go
- Dropped "no longer does its own git inspection" phrasing in vm_run.go
- Dropped the "(also cleans up legacy inline block from pre-opt-in
builds)" aside on the `ssh-config` CLI docstring
- Renamed test var `legacyKey` → `existingKey` in vm_test.go; its
purpose was "pre-existing authorized_keys line," not banger-legacy
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Before this change, every daemon.Open() wrote a Host *.vm stanza into
~/.ssh/config in a marker-fenced block. That's a real footgun for users
who manage their SSH config declaratively (chezmoi, dotfiles, NixOS):
banger was mutating host state outside its own directory on every
daemon start, easy to miss and hard to audit.
New contract: the daemon only ever writes its own ssh_config file at
~/.config/banger/ssh_config. ~/.ssh/config is untouched unless the user
opts in. `banger vm ssh <name>` still works out of the box — the
shortcut only matters for plain `ssh sandbox.vm` from any terminal.
The opt-in surface is `banger ssh-config`:
banger ssh-config # prints path + include-line +
# install/uninstall hints
banger ssh-config --install # adds `Include <bangerConfig>` to
# ~/.ssh/config inside a marker-fenced
# block; idempotent; migrates any
# legacy inline Host *.vm block from
# pre-opt-in builds
banger ssh-config --uninstall # removes the new Include block AND
# any legacy inline block
Doctor gains a gentle warn-level note when banger's ssh_config exists
but the user hasn't wired it in — not a fail, since the shortcut is
convenience and `banger vm ssh` covers the essential case.
Tests cover: daemon writes banger file and does NOT touch ~/.ssh/config,
Install adds the block, Install is idempotent, Install migrates the
legacy inline block cleanly (removing it, preserving unrelated
entries, adding the new Include block), Uninstall removes both marker
variants, Uninstall is a no-op when ~/.ssh/config is absent, and
UserSSHIncludeInstalled detects both marker shapes.
README reframes the feature as optional convenience.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
