Apple container boundary

Apple container is the runtime. Hostwright provides Manifest v3 validation, resource admission, operation planning, local state, and confirmed lifecycle commands for one Apple silicon Mac.

Local provider paths

Hostwright supports the Apple container CLI provider and Apple Containerization 0.35.0 through an out-of-process helper. Each provider exposes only its declared and qualified capability subset. See Runtime providers and Compatibility.

Responsibility boundary

Hostwright owns the manifest contract, plan and confirmation checks, local identity and reservations, operation records, recovery fences, and cleanup authorization. Apple container owns its VM, image, and networking internals. Provider acceptance does not prove success: Hostwright checks the observed postcondition before committing lifecycle state.

Unsupported behavior fails closed

Hostwright does not emulate Docker or Kubernetes. Unsupported runtime capabilities and orchestrator fields fail before effects rather than being translated into an approximation.

The supported behavior depends on the provider and its exact version. The core compatibility reference records the current matrix and its qualification status.