Try it on your own computer first

Run a virtual machine on your computer and use it exactly like a VPS: set it up, make workspaces, add packages, open them. Nothing to buy, and you can throw it away when you are done.

You need: a Mac or Linux computer and Lima, which runs the virtual machine: brew install lima.

1. Create the machine

devmachine machines create-local sandbox

It prints the machine’s address, its port and the root password:

sandbox      127.0.0.1                    port 60022  admin: root
It has no key on it yet, and the root password is "devmachine".

The machine arrives the way a bought server does: reachable as root with a password, and no key yet. The password is public on purpose — this machine holds nothing real.

2. Set it up

If this is your first machine:

devmachine setup

If you already have a machine configured, add this one next to it:

devmachine machines add

Answer with what step 1 printed: address 127.0.0.1, login root, the port it showed, and the password when asked. Everything else is the same as on a real server: the fingerprint check, the key, password logins turned off.

3. Use it like a VPS

devmachine workspaces new alice --machine sandbox
devmachine packages add claude-code --workspace alice
devmachine sync --machine sandbox
devmachine ssh alice

--machine sandbox is needed only when you have more than one machine.

What does not work on a local machine

The internet cannot reach a virtual machine on your computer, so dns, HTTPS certificates and expose do not work there. Everything else does. To see an app you run in the VM, use a tunnel instead of a URL:

devmachine tunnel alice 3000

Stop it, start it, throw it away

devmachine machines stop sandbox
devmachine machines start sandbox
devmachine machines delete-local sandbox

delete-local destroys the VM and everything in it. Then take it out of your configuration: first its workspaces with devmachine workspaces rm alice, then the machine with devmachine machines rm sandbox — it refuses while a workspace still points at it.

Check it: devmachine doctor --machine sandbox passes every line after step 2.

Source: Lima