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".
Remind users when a VM is still running after hanger vm ssh exits instead of silently dropping them back to the host shell.\n\nAttach a Firecracker vsock device to each VM, persist the host vsock path/CID,\nadd a new guest-side banger-vsock-pingd responder to the runtime bundle and both\nimage-build paths, and expose a vm.ping RPC that the CLI and TUI call after SSH\nreturns. Doctor and start/build preflight now validate the helper plus\n/dev/vhost-vsock so the feature fails early and clearly.\n\nValidated with go mod tidy, bash -n customize.sh, git diff --check, make build,\nand GOCACHE=/tmp/banger-gocache go test ./... outside the sandbox because the\ndaemon tests need real Unix/UDP sockets. Rebuild the image/rootfs used for new\nVMs so the guest ping service is present.
Stop presenting make runtime-bundle as a turnkey fresh-checkout bootstrap\nwhen the checked-in manifest is intentionally empty. The manifest comments,\nruntimebundle error messages, Make help, README, and AGENTS docs now all\ndescribe the same local-first flow: stage an archive, use a separate local\nmanifest copy with url/sha256, then bootstrap ./runtime from that manifest.\n\nKeep the existing package/fetch commands intact, and add a small runtimebundle\nregression test so the local-manifest guidance does not drift again.\n\nValidated with make help and GOCACHE=/tmp/banger-gocache go test\n./internal/runtimebundle.
Stop assuming one workstation layout for runtime artifacts, mapdns, and host tooling. The daemon and shell helpers now use portable mapdns configuration, and runtime bundles can carry bundle.json metadata for their default kernel, initrd, modules, rootfs, and helper paths.
Load bundle metadata through config with a legacy layout fallback, thread mapdns_bin/mapdns_data_file through the Go and shell paths, and add command-scoped preflight checks for VM start, NAT, image build, work-disk resize, and SSH so missing tools or artifacts fail with actionable errors.
Update the runtime-bundle manifest, docs, and tests to match the new model. Verified with go test ./..., make build, and bash -n customize.sh interactive.sh dns.sh make-rootfs.sh verify.sh.
Stop treating Firecracker, kernels, modules, and guest images as tracked source files. Source checkouts now resolve runtime assets from ./runtime, while installed binaries keep using ../lib/banger.
Add a small runtimebundle helper plus runtime-bundle.toml so make can bootstrap, package, and install a runtime bundle with checksum validation. Update the shell helpers and daemon path hints to fail clearly when the bundle is missing instead of assuming repo-root artifacts.
This removes the tracked runtime blobs from HEAD in favor of an ignored local runtime/ tree. Verified with go test ./..., make build, bash -n on the shell helpers, make -n install, and a temporary package/fetch smoke test. The manifest URL/SHA still need a published bundle before fresh clones can bootstrap, and history rewrite remains a separate rollout step.
