Tidesman lets AI control Apple Containers on a Mac
Tidesman v0.1.1 is a free native MCP server that connects AI tools to Apple’s new container tool v1.0. Apple’s container tool runs Linux containers inside lightweight on macOS. With Tidesman, MCP-compatible AI tools such as Claude and Codex can create a container on your Mac, run a command inside it, read logs, and clean it up afterward.
Instead of driving the and reading text output, Tidesman connects directly to Apple’s engine through Apple’s Swift client library. That should make it faster and less fragile when output changes. Its default mode is read-only, command execution must be enabled, and destructive actions such as deletion require a separate permission level.
Access to host folders stays off unless the user enables it, and every tool call is logged. It is signed and notarized, installs from Homebrew or GitHub, and requires macOS 26, , and Apple’s container tool.
Key points
- Tidesman connects Apple’s container tool to MCP-compatible AI tools such as Claude and Codex.
- AI can create containers, run commands, read logs, and remove containers on the local Mac.
- It uses Apple’s Swift client library instead of parsing text output.
- It starts read-only, with separate permission levels for commands and destructive actions.
- It requires macOS 26, , and Apple’s container tool.