UTM VM Automation (macOS)

UTM wraps QEMU and Apple's Virtualization.framework. There are two automation surfaces, and they are not equivalent:

• utmctl — bundled CLI. Lifecycle, guest exec/files/IP, clone, USB. It cannot create, import, export, or configure VMs.
• AppleScript (via osascript) — strict superset: everything utmctl does, plus creating VMs, editing hardware config, and keyboard/mouse input injection.

Rule of thumb: lifecycle and guest ops → utmctl; creation and configuration → AppleScript. Both drive UTM.app over Apple Events (the app auto-launches; there is no true daemon mode).

UTMCTL=/Applications/UTM.app/Contents/MacOS/utmctl   # not on PATH by default

Task routing