Launch HN: Cua (YC X25) – Open-Source Docker Container for Computer-Use Agents
by frabonacci | 2025-04-23 15:55:05+00:00
Hey HN, we’re Francesco and Alessandro, the creators of c/ua (https://www.trycua.com), a Docker‑style container runtime that lets AI agents drive full operating systems in lightweight, isolated VMs. Our entire framework is open‑source (https://github.com/trycua/cua), and today we’re thrilled to have our Launch HN!

Check out our demo to see it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee9qf-13gho, and for more examples - including Tableau, Photoshop, CAD workflows - see the demos in our repo: https://github.com/trycua/cua.

For Computer-Use AI agents to be genuinely useful, they must interact with your system's native applications. But giving full access to your host device is risky. What if the agent's process gets compromised, or the LLM hallucinates and leaks your data? And practically speaking, do you really want to give up control of your entire machine just so the agent can do its job?

The idea behind c/ua is simple: let agents operate in a mirror of the user’s system - isolated, secure, and disposable - so users can fire-and-forget complex tasks without needing to dedicate their entire system to the agent. By running in a virtualized environment, agents can carry out their work without interrupting your workflow or risking the integrity of your system.

While exploring this idea, I discovered Apple’s Virtualization.Framework and realized it offered fast and lightweight virtualization on Apple Silicon. This led us to build a high-performance virtualization layer and, eventually, a computer-use interface that allows agents to interact with apps just like a human would - without taking over the entire system.

As we built this, we decided to open-source the virtualization core as a standalone CLI tool called Lume (Show HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42908061). c/ua builds on top of Lume, providing a full framework for running agent workflows inside secure macOS or Linux VMs, so your system stays free for you to use while the agent works its magic in the background.

With Cua you can build an AI agent within a virtual environment to: - navigate and interact with any application's interface; - read screen content and perform keyboard/mouse actions; - switch between applications and self-debug when needed; - operate in a secure sandbox with controlled file access. All of this occurs in a fully isolated environment, ensuring your host system, files, and sensitive data remain completely secure, while you continue using your device without interruption.

People are using c/ua to: - Bypass CryptoJS-based encryption and anti-bot measures to interact with modern web apps reliably; - Automate Tableau dashboards and export insights via Claude Desktop; - Drive Photoshop for batch image editing by prompt; - Modify 3D models in Fusion 360 with a CAD Copilot; -Extract data from legacy ERP apps without brittle screen‑scraping scripts.

We’re currently working on multi‑VM orchestration for parallel agentic workflows, Windows and Linux VM support, and episodic and long-term memory for CUA Agents.

On the open‑source side, c/ua is 100 % free under the MIT license - run it locally with any LLM you like. We’re also gearing up a hosted orchestration service for teams who want zero‑ops setup (early access sign‑ups opening soon).

We’d love to hear from you. What desktop or legacy apps do you wish you could automate? Any thoughts, feedback, or horror stories from fragile AI automations are more than welcome!