We Rebuilt the Linux MicroVM Stack on Apple Silicon

Encore rebuilt its Linux-based Firecracker microVM workflow for Apple Silicon by creating “crackling,” a unified API that drives Firecracker on Linux and Apple’s Hypervisor.framework on macOS. Engineers receive a personal VM environment via scripts that provision users, sync Docker-derived images, and convert layers into squashfs images using a custom pipeline, enabling fast, isolated builds on Mac laptops while keeping production Firecracker instances unchanged.