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.
Fix the misleading make install path where banger and bangerd still depended on a repo checkout for Firecracker, guest artifacts, image builds, and the SSH key.
Replace repo-root inference with an explicit runtime bundle model: resolve a runtime_dir from env/config/install layout, derive concrete artifact paths from it, and update the daemon, CLI, and image-build flow to use those paths. Keep repo_root only as an explicit compatibility alias instead of auto-detecting it.
Teach customize.sh to run from a read-only bundled runtime tree while writing transient state under XDG/BANGER_STATE_DIR, and make make install copy the runtime assets into PREFIX/lib/banger so installed binaries stay usable outside the repo.
Validate with go test ./..., make build, bash -n customize.sh, and make install DESTDIR=/tmp/banger-install PREFIX=/usr. An out-of-repo installed-binary smoke test was attempted, but this sandbox blocked bangerd from binding its Unix socket (setsockopt: operation not permitted).
Prevent partial VM startup failures from leaking loop devices and dm state on the host.
Move root snapshot setup into a rollback-safe helper that records loop and mapper handles incrementally, tears them down in reverse order on failure, and reuses the same dm/loop cleanup path during normal runtime teardown. Also switch the daemon runner field to a small command-runner interface so the snapshot path can be tested with injected failures.
Add failure-injection coverage for losetup, blockdev, dmsetup, partial teardown, and joined rollback errors. Validated with go test ./... and make build.
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.
Replace the daemon's hand-rolled Firecracker process/socket client with the official firecracker-go-sdk while keeping the existing VM lifecycle and host-side disk and TAP setup intact.
Build machine configs through the SDK, launch Firecracker through a sudo process runner, resolve the real VM PID after startup, and use the SDK client for Ctrl-Alt-Del instead of raw REST calls. Drop the unused cached Firecracker state and add focused adapter tests for config and process-runner wiring.
Validated with go mod tidy, go test ./..., and make build. A live KVM/Firecracker smoke boot was not run in this environment.
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`.
