AI agents

Lima is useful for running AI agents inside a VM, so as to prevent agents from directly reading, writing, or executing the host files.

For running AI agents, it is highly recommended to only mount your project directory (current directory) into the VM:

limactl start --mount-only .:w

Drop :w for read-only mode.

limactl start --set ".mounts=[{\"location\":\"$(pwd)\", \"writable\":true}]"

Set writable to false for read-only mode.

lima sudo apt install -y pipx
lima pipx install aider-install
lima sh -c 'echo "export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin" >>~/.bash_profile'
lima aider-install
lima aider

Follow the guide shown in the first session for authentication.

Alternatively, you can set environmental variables via:

lima vi "/home/${USER}.linux/.bash_profile"

See also https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider.

lima sudo snap install node --classic
lima sudo npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
lima codex

Follow the guide shown in the first session for authentication.

Alternatively, you can set export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY... via:

lima vi "/home/${USER}.linux/.bash_profile"

See also https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code.

lima sudo snap install node --classic
lima sudo npm install -g @openai/codex
lima codex

Follow the guide shown in the first session for authentication.

Alternatively, you can set export OPENAI_API_KEY... via:

lima vi "/home/${USER}.linux/.bash_profile"

See also https://github.com/openai/codex.

lima sudo snap install node --classic
lima sudo npm install -g @google/gemini-cli
lima gemini

Follow the guide shown in the first session for authentication.

Alternatively, you can set export GEMINI_API_KEY... via:

lima vi "/home/${USER}.linux/.bash_profile"

See also https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli.

lima sudo snap install node --classic
lima sudo npm install -g @github/copilot
lima copilot

Type /login in the first session for authentication.

Alternatively, you can set export GH_TOKEN=... via:

lima vi "/home/${USER}.linux/.bash_profile"

See also https://github.com/github/copilot-cli.

See also

Last modified October 1, 2025: docs: add examples for AI agents (638e3baf)