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.
Fix the Go control plane NAT path now that runtime state lives in the daemon instead of the old repo-local vm.json files.
Add a daemon-native NAT helper that derives uplink, guest IP, and TAP rules directly from VMRecord, applies the existing iptables/sysctl behavior idempotently, and removes the broken nat.sh handoff from vm.go.
Cover uplink parsing and rule generation with unit tests. Validated with go test ./... and make build; a live verify.sh --nat run installed host rules but stopped on the same guest SSH-readiness issue seen in the plain smoke test on this host.
