Cua Docs

Install and run Lume

Install Lume, Cua's local Apple Silicon VM manager for macOS and Linux guests.

Lume is Cua's local VM manager for Apple Silicon Macs. Use it when you want to create, run, or serve macOS and Linux VMs on your own machine. It can provide local VM substrate for Cua workflows, but the primary product choice is still Cua Driver for an existing machine or Cua Sandbox for a fresh isolated desktop.

Requirements#

  • Apple Silicon Mac (M1, M2, M3, etc.)
  • macOS 13.0 or later
  • At least 8GB of RAM (16GB recommended)
  • At least 50GB of free disk space

Install Lume#

Install with a single command:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://cua.ai/lume/install.sh)"

Verify the install#

lume --version

Update Lume#

Check whether a newer release is available:

lume check-update

Apply an available update:

lume update --apply

The installer no longer creates scheduled auto-updaters. Older lume-update cron jobs and LaunchAgents are removed the next time the installer runs.

Choose a release channel#

To select nightlies for future checks and explicit updates, install the newest nightly and persist the channel in one command:

curl -fsSL https://cua.ai/lume/install.sh | bash -s -- --channel nightly

Later checks and explicit updates stay on nightly. Switch back with:

lume channel set stable
lume update --apply

channel set never replaces the running binary by itself. Stable remains the default on machines without saved channel state.

Pin one exact nightly#

Nightlies are immutable builds of exact main commits. Copy the full nightly-lume-v… tag from the component's GitHub release and pass it as an explicit, one-shot pin:

curl -fsSL https://cua.ai/lume/install.sh | \
  LUME_VERSION=nightly-lume-v0.5.4-nightly.20260812.123456789 bash

The pin does not change the saved channel and cannot be combined with --channel. Stable discovery remains blind to nightly tags, and nightly discovery remains blind to stable tags.

Manual installation#

You can also download the lume.pkg.tar.gz archive from the latest release, extract it, and install the package manually.

Next steps#