VM start, image build, and network/setup failures were hard to diagnose because bangerd emitted almost no lifecycle logs and the Firecracker SDK logger was discarded. This adds a daemon-wide JSON logger with configurable log level so failures leave breadcrumbs instead of only side effects.
Log the main daemon and VM lifecycle stages, preserve raw Firecracker and image-build helper output in dedicated files, and include those log paths in daemon status and returned errors. Bridge SDK logrus output into the daemon logger at debug level so low-level Firecracker diagnostics are available without making normal info logs unreadable.
Validation: go test ./... and make build. Left unrelated worktree changes out of this commit, including internal/api/types.go, the deleted shell scripts, and my-rootfs.ext4.
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.
Replace the shell-only user workflow with `banger` and `bangerd`: Cobra commands, XDG/SQLite-backed state, managed VM and image lifecycle, and a Bubble Tea TUI for browsing and operating VMs.\n\nKeep Firecracker orchestration behind the daemon so VM specs become persistent objects, and add repo entrypoints for building, installing, and documenting the new flow while still delegating rootfs customization to the existing shell tooling.\n\nHarden the control plane around real usage by reclaiming Firecracker API sockets for the user, restarting stale daemons after rebuilds, and returning the correct `vm.create` payload so the CLI and TUI creation flow work reliably.\n\nValidation: `go test ./...`, `make build`, and a host-side smoke test with `./banger vm create --name codex-smoke`.
Move the default guest package list into a repo manifest and record a hash beside built rootfs images so run/make-rootfs can warn when the docker-ready image is stale.
Switch the Firecracker launch path to a single sparse root overlay per VM instead of separate /home and /var disks, so many VMs can share the same base image while still installing packages under /var and working from /root.
Keep older images bootable by masking stale home.mount and var.mount units at boot, and scrub those obsolete fstab entries when customize.sh rebuilds an image. Verified with bash -n on the updated scripts; no live VM boot was run in this environment.
Make spawned VMs easier to use and restore from the host.
Add shared DNS and runtime helpers, publish <vm-name>.vm records through mapdns, and teach run/customize/interactive/restore to persist the metadata needed for SSH, DNS cleanup, and clean restores.
Seed per-VM /home and /var disks from the rootfs snapshot so package state is present on first boot, add an interactive customization entrypoint plus ssh.sh and human-friendly list output, and let stop/kill/rm operate on multiple VM identifiers.
Tear down stale TAP, dm, and loop state when VMs stop so restore can recreate them safely, and validate the updated scripts with bash -n plus targeted dry-run harnesses for teardown and restore paths.
