{"id":19866233,"url":"https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight","last_synced_at":"2026-06-30T01:01:15.466Z","repository":{"id":261504511,"uuid":"883829350","full_name":"hyperlight-dev/hyperlight","owner":"hyperlight-dev","description":"Hyperlight is a lightweight Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) designed to be embedded within applications. It enables safe execution of untrusted code within micro virtual machines with very low latency and minimal overhead.","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2026-06-25T05:25:44.000Z","size":8279,"stargazers_count":4460,"open_issues_count":192,"forks_count":187,"subscribers_count":33,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2026-06-25T07:12:06.114Z","etag":null,"topics":["hyper-v","hypervisor","kvm","mshv","rust","vmm"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"https://hyperlight.org","language":"Rust","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"apache-2.0","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/hyperlight-dev.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":"CHANGELOG.md","contributing":"CONTRIBUTING.md","funding":null,"license":"LICENSE.txt","code_of_conduct":"CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md","threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":".github/CODEOWNERS","security":"SECURITY.md","support":"SUPPORT.md","governance":"GOVERNANCE.md","roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null,"zenodo":null,"notice":"NOTICE.txt","maintainers":"MAINTAINERS.md","copyright":null,"agents":null,"dco":null,"cla":null}},"created_at":"2024-11-05T16:39:07.000Z","updated_at":"2026-06-25T06:28:34.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2024-11-06T22:41:21.816Z","dependency_job_id":"8aa5f810-d551-4abb-9763-32a4382dd71c","html_url":"https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":["hyperlight-dev/hyperlight"],"tags_count":20,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/hyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/hyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/hyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/hyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/hyperlight-dev","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/hyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight/sbom","scorecard":null,"host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":286080680,"owners_count":34948227,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2026-05-26T15:22:16.424Z","status":"online","status_checked_at":"2026-06-29T02:00:05.398Z","response_time":58,"last_error":null,"robots_txt_status":"success","robots_txt_updated_at":"2025-07-24T06:49:26.215Z","robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":true,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["hyper-v","hypervisor","kvm","mshv","rust","vmm"],"created_at":"2024-11-12T15:25:17.739Z","updated_at":"2026-06-30T01:01:15.440Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/hyperlight-dev.png","language":"Rust","funding_links":[],"categories":["Rust","Uncategorized","Projects","Sandboxing \u0026 Isolation"],"sub_categories":["Uncategorized","Security"],"readme":"\u003cdiv align=\"center\"\u003e\n    \u003ch1\u003eHyperlight\u003c/h1\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight/refs/heads/main/docs/assets/hyperlight-logo.png\" width=\"150px\" alt=\"hyperlight logo\"/\u003e\n    \u003cp\u003e\n        \u003cstrong\u003eA lightweight VMM for running untrusted code in micro VMs with minimal overhead.\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n        A \u003ca href=\"https://www.cncf.io/projects/hyperlight/\"\u003eCloud Native Computing Foundation\u003c/a\u003e sandbox project.\n    \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003e **Status:** Hyperlight is pre-1.0. The API may change between releases, and upgrading will sometimes require code changes.\n\nHyperlight lets you safely run untrusted code inside hypervisor-isolated micro VMs that spin up in milliseconds, with guest function calls completing in microseconds. You embed it as a library in your Rust application, hand it a guest binary, and call functions across the VM boundary as naturally as calling a local function. To minimize startup time and memory footprint, there's no guest kernel or OS. Guests are purpose-built using the Hyperlight guest library.\n\n- Supports [KVM](https://linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page), [MSHV](https://github.com/rust-vmm/mshv), and [Windows Hypervisor Platform](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/api/#windows-hypervisor-platform)\n- No kernel or OS in the VM. Guests are regular ELF binaries written in `no_std` Rust or C\n- Host and guest communicate through typed function calls\n- Guests are sandboxed by default with no access to the host filesystem, network, etc.\n\n## Example\n\n**Host** - create a sandbox, register a host function, and call into the guest:\n\n```rust\n// Create an uninitialized sandbox by giving it the path to a guest binary.\n// Allocates memory but does not yet run a VM.\nlet mut sandbox = UninitializedSandbox::new(GuestBinary::FilePath(guest_path), None)?;\n\n// Register a host function that the guest can call. In a real app this\n// might query a database, read a config, or call an external API.\n// By default, guests can only print to the host.\nsandbox.register(\"GetWeekday\", || Ok(\"Monday\".to_string()))?;\n\n// Initialize the sandbox. Starts the VM and runs guest setup code.\nlet mut sandbox: MultiUseSandbox = sandbox.evolve()?;\n\n// Call a function inside the VM\nlet greeting: String = sandbox.call(\"SayHello\", \"World\".to_string())?;\nprintln!(\"{greeting}\"); // \"Hello, World! Today is Monday.\"\n```\n\nGuest state persists across calls. Use `snapshot()` and `restore()` to save and reset VM memory. This avoids recreating the VM while ensuring each call starts from a clean state.\n\n**Guest** (Rust) - declare host functions and expose guest functions with simple macros. Guests can also be [written in C](./src/hyperlight_guest_capi).\n\n```rust\n#[host_function(\"GetWeekday\")]\nfn get_weekday() -\u003e Result\u003cString\u003e;\n\n#[guest_function(\"SayHello\")]\nfn say_hello(name: String) -\u003e Result\u003cString\u003e {\n    let weekday = get_weekday()?;\n    Ok(format!(\"Hello, {name}! Today is {weekday}.\"))\n}\n```\n\nTo get started, see the [Getting Started](./docs/getting-started.md) guide. For more details on writing guests, see [How to build a Hyperlight guest binary](./docs/how-to-build-a-hyperlight-guest-binary.md).\n\n## When to use Hyperlight\n\nHyperlight is a good fit when you need to:\n\n- Run untrusted or third-party code with hypervisor-level isolation\n- Create and tear down sandboxes in milliseconds\n- Make guest function calls in microseconds\n- Embed sandboxed execution directly in your application\n- Build functions-as-a-service with hypervisor-level isolation\n- Reuse sandboxes efficiently with snapshot and restore\n\nHyperlight is *not* designed for:\n\n- General-purpose virtualization (use a full VMM instead)\n- Running full-blown Linux guest workloads that need syscalls, networking, or filesystem access\n\n## Getting started\n\nSee [docs/getting-started.md](./docs/getting-started.md) for detailed prerequisites and platform-specific setup for:\n- **Running** Hyperlight\n- **Building guests**\n\nOr skip setup entirely with a codespace:\n\n[![Open in GitHub Codespaces](https://github.com/codespaces/badge.svg)](https://codespaces.new/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight)\n\n## Repository Structure\n\n| Directory | Description |\n|---|---|\n| [src/hyperlight_host](./src/hyperlight_host) | Host library - creates and manages micro VMs |\n| [src/hyperlight_guest](./src/hyperlight_guest) | Core guest library - minimal building blocks for guest-host interaction |\n| [src/hyperlight_guest_bin](./src/hyperlight_guest_bin) | Extended guest library - entry point, panic handler, heap, logging, exceptions |\n| [src/hyperlight_guest_capi](./src/hyperlight_guest_capi) | C API wrapper around `hyperlight_guest_bin` for use via FFI |\n| [src/hyperlight_libc](./src/hyperlight_libc) | C standard library for guests, built from picolibc |\n| [src/hyperlight_guest_macro](./src/hyperlight_guest_macro) | Macros for registering guest and host functions |\n| [src/hyperlight_guest_tracing](./src/hyperlight_guest_tracing) | Tracing support for guests |\n| [src/hyperlight_common](./src/hyperlight_common) | Shared code used by both host and guest |\n| [src/hyperlight_component_macro](./src/hyperlight_component_macro) | Proc macros for WIT-based host/guest bindings |\n| [src/hyperlight_component_util](./src/hyperlight_component_util) | Shared implementation for WIT binding generation |\n| [src/hyperlight_testing](./src/hyperlight_testing) | Shared test utilities |\n| [src/schema](./src/schema) | FlatBuffer schema definitions |\n| [src/trace_dump](./src/trace_dump) | Tool for dumping and visualizing trace data |\n| [src/tests](./src/tests) | Test guest programs (Rust and C) |\n\n## Related Projects\n\n- [cargo-hyperlight](https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/cargo-hyperlight) - Cargo subcommand for building and scaffolding Hyperlight guests\n- [hyperlight-wasm](https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight-wasm) - Run WebAssembly modules inside Hyperlight micro VMs\n- [hyperlight-js](https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight-js) - Run JavaScript inside Hyperlight micro VMs\n- [hyperlight-sandbox](https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight-sandbox) - Multi-backend sandboxing framework for running untrusted code with controlled host capabilities, with Python, .NET, and Rust SDKs\n- [hyperlight-unikraft](https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight-unikraft) - Run Linux applications (Python, Node.js, Go, Rust, C/C++) on Hyperlight micro VMs using Unikraft as the guest kernel\n\n## Contributing\n\nSee [CONTRIBUTING.md](./CONTRIBUTING.md).\n\n## Community\n\n- **Meetings**: Every other Wednesday 09:00 PST/PDT ([convert to your time](https://dateful.com/convert/pst-pdt-pacific-time?t=09)). Agenda and join info in the [Community Meeting Notes](https://hackmd.io/blCrncfOSEuqSbRVT9KYkg#Agenda).\n- **Slack**: [#hyperlight](https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/hyperlight) on CNCF Slack ([join here](https://www.cncf.io/membership-faq/#how-do-i-join-cncfs-slack)).\n- **Docs**: [`docs/` directory](./docs/README.md)\n- **Code of Conduct**: [CNCF Code of Conduct](https://github.com/cncf/foundation/blob/main/code-of-conduct.md)\n\n---\n\n[![FOSSA Status](https://app.fossa.com/api/projects/git%2Bgithub.com%2Fhyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight.svg?type=large)](https://app.fossa.com/projects/git%2Bgithub.com%2Fhyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight?ref=badge_large)\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fhyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fhyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fhyperlight-dev%2Fhyperlight/lists"}