ColimaDeck

A native macOS app for managing Colima: your Colima machines, and the Docker containers, images and volumes running inside them, all in one window instead of a stack of terminal commands.

Built with SwiftUI. No Electron, no background daemon. It runs the colima and docker commands, and installs them for you if you don't have them yet.

Features

Machines

• A card for each Colima machine (profile) showing its status, CPUs, memory, disk, architecture, runtime and IP address
• Start, stop, restart, force stop, force restart and delete, with progress shown on the card
• New Machine and Edit Settings forms covering every colima start option: resources, architecture, custom disk image, runtime, Kubernetes version and k3s arguments, VM type (Apple Virtualization, QEMU, krunkit), Rosetta, binfmt, nested virtualization, hostname, shared folders, networking, DNS, SSH, environment variables and more. No config files to edit by hand: Save stores your changes, and Save and Restart applies them right away.
• Open a shell inside the machine in Terminal (colima ssh)

Machine details

• Live status from colima status --extended, plus Colima and runtime versions
• Kubernetes: start, stop, reset and delete the cluster
• Run a command inside the VM and see its output
• SSH connection settings (colima ssh-config) to copy into tools like VS Code Remote
• Update the container runtime (colima update)
• nerdctl for containerd machines: install the nerdctl command on your Mac
• AI models (Docker runtime with the krunkit VM type): set up, list, pull, chat with and serve models

Containers

• Grouped by Docker Compose project, with Start All and Stop All buttons for each project
• Live CPU and memory bars for running containers
• Published ports shown as buttons that open http://localhost:<port>
• Start, stop, restart, pause, resume and remove
• A side panel with the container's details and logs, which update as new output arrives
• Open a shell inside the container in Terminal (uses bash if it's there, otherwise sh)
• Filter by name, image or project, or show running containers only

Images and Volumes

• Tables you can filter by name
• Pull images by name (for example postgres:17)
• Remove selected items, or delete everything unused with Clean Up (the app asks first)

Tools

• Colima's version and location
• Create or edit the template new machines start from, in the same form as machine settings
• Clean up Colima's downloaded VM images (colima prune)
• Choose how much detail Colima prints in Activity (--verbose, --very-verbose)
• Set up tab completion for colima in zsh, bash or fish

Activity

• The full output of every command the app has run, newest first. Failed commands open automatically so you can see why.

Menu bar

• Start and stop machines, and see how many containers are running, without opening the window. Closing the window leaves the app running in the menu bar.

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later

• Colima and the Docker CLI. If they're missing, ColimaDeck offers to install them with Homebrew the first time you open it. If you don't have Homebrew either, it opens Terminal to install that first, because Homebrew's installer asks for your password. To install them yourself instead:

  brew install colima docker

• To build from source: Xcode or the Xcode Command Line Tools, with Swift 5.10 or later (xcode-select --install)

Install

Download

1. Download ColimaDeck-<version>.dmg from the latest release. It runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

2. Open the DMG and drag ColimaDeck into Applications.

3. The app isn't notarized by Apple, so macOS blocks it the first time you open it. To allow it, open it once, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway. Or run this in Terminal:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/ColimaDeck.app

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Fahimefto/ColimaDeck.git
cd ColimaDeck
./build-app.sh --install

This builds a universal release version and copies ColimaDeck.app into /Applications. Without --install, the app is left at build/ColimaDeck.app.

Using it

1. If Colima isn't installed, the setup window installs it. Then open Machines. If you don't have a machine yet, click New Machine. The first start downloads a VM image, which can take a few minutes. You can follow its progress in Activity.
2. Once a machine is running, Containers, Images and Volumes show what's inside it.
3. If you have more than one machine, use the machine picker in the toolbar to choose which one the Docker screens show.

A note on docker context

ColimaDeck connects to each machine's Docker socket directly (~/.colima/<name>/docker.sock), so it never changes your active Docker context. That means it works fine alongside OrbStack or Docker Desktop.

Colima itself is different: by default, starting a machine makes it your active context. To stop that, open ⋯ → Edit Settings on the machine card and turn off Make it the active context when it starts.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
"Colima isn't installed"	Click Set Up on the Machines screen to install it. The app looks for Colima in /opt/homebrew/bin, /usr/local/bin and the usual system folders.
Installing fails	Open Activity to see Homebrew's output. Running brew doctor in Terminal often explains why.
A machine won't start	Open Activity and expand the failed entry to see Colima's full output.
"Docker isn't available"	The machine uses containerd or Incus. The Docker screens need a machine running the Docker runtime.
Open Terminal does nothing	Allow ColimaDeck to control Terminal in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation.
You use a custom Colima home folder	Launch the app with COLIMA_HOME set, for example COLIMA_HOME=~/vms open /Applications/ColimaDeck.app.

Development

swift run          # build and run from source
swift build        # build only
./build-app.sh     # build the .app
./build-app.sh --dmg  # also package build/ColimaDeck-<version>.dmg
swift scripts/make-icon.swift  # redraw the app icon into Resources/

You can open Package.swift in Xcode to work on the UI with previews and the debugger.

To understand how the code fits together, see docs/ARCHITECTURE.md. Contributions are welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.