ACMS (Apple Container MCP Server)

ACMS is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides programmatic access to Apple's container CLI tool on macOS. ACMS can be run locally or accessed remotely via HTTP/S.

The point of ACMS is to bring attention to the Containerization package and Container cli efforts. Inspiration for ACMS came from coderunner.

Features (as pitched by Claude)

• 50+ Container Operations across 9 functional categories
• HTTP/WebSocket Transport via FastMCP for modern connectivity
• Robust Parameter Validation supporting JSON strings and native arrays
• Production-Ready with 100% tested functionality

Prerequisites

• Mac with Apple Silicon
• macOS 26+ - It can run on Sequoia with limitations.
• Xcode 26 - required to compile containerization
• Apple Containerization Framework - (required for container functionality)
• Apple Container Cli - installed and in PATH
• Python 3.8+ - with asyncio support

Quick Start

Install

Either clone the repository or pip install acms in a venv.

Start Apple Container Services

# Required for most operations
container system start

# Verify system status
container system status

Start ACMS Server

# Recommended: Use the startup script
./start-acms.sh

# Or start directly with custom options
python3 acms/acms.py --port 8765 --host 127.0.0.1 > acms.log 2>&1 &

Configure MCP Client

Add to your MCP client configuration:

claude mcp add --transport http acms http://localhost:8765/mcp

Usage Examples

"acms create an ubuntu x64 container ..."

Testing

ACMS includes comprehensive end-to-end testing, just tell Claude to run the "ACMS CLAUDE TEST GUIDE".

Security Considerations

This is not secure, especially if you run it on a remote Mac OS endpoint on your home net.

mcp-name: io.github.gattjoe/ACMS