ACCradle · AmigaChrome management console

A whole Amiga.
On demand.

Every Amiga has a beginning. Now it has a Cradle.

A control room for complete Amiga machines: create them from recipes, start them in their own windows, inspect their hardware, protect their system disks and build software against them. Borrowing Docker's best habit—repeatability—without pretending an Amiga is just another Linux container.

Explore Cradle features ↗ Cradle vs Docker ↗ See the development loop ↗

A developing product with working capabilities and a clearly marked engineering roadmap.

Real ACCradle Instances view showing several independently named AmigaOS machines and their Workbench screens

Real ACKitchen development editor with Cook and Serve controls, a target compiler and AmigaOS documentation

Real Cradle development build · October 2026Instances · Hardware · Cookbooks · Snapshots

ProvisionAn Amiga from a recipe

RunEach machine, independently

ProtectStorage snapshots and safe updates

DevelopCook, serve, test, improve

Your personal Amiga fleet

One console.
As many Amigas as you need.

Whether you have one Workbench or a test lab full of configurations, Cradle manages each machine as a deliberate environment, rather than a collection of anonymous emulator launch commands.

01 / INSTANCE MANAGER

Give every Amiga its own identity

Named machines with independent hardware settings, storage and windows. Start, open, shut down, inspect or archive without mixing one instance's files with another's.

02 / ACCOOKBOOK

Define it before you boot it

Recipes describe machine type, firmware, OS, memory, devices, media and first-start choices. Build a familiar AmigaOS 3.2.3 or AROS environment from the right ingredients.

03 / HARDWARE & CONTROLS

More than a screen resolution

AC090 processor choices, RTG graphics, networking, floppy and optical drives, keyboard and gamepad mapping, all part of a machine you can inspect and adjust. The screen shows Fit, Sharp or Native: in Native, the Workbench grows to the window, every Amiga pixel drawn as whole screen pixels. The Amiga takes the host's time zone, summer time included.

04 / SNAPSHOTS

Protect your system disk

Make and schedule DH0 snapshots while an instance is stopped. Restore with an additional safety snapshot and keep an archive trail rather than gambling with your setup.

05 / UPDATE & DIAGNOSTICS

Repair without losing the evidence

Update AmigaChrome tools across instances, queue changes safely for running systems, retain old copies and collect diagnostic bundles with screenshots, logs and build identity.

06 / ACBUILD & ACKITCHEN

The development lab is built in

Prepare recipes, select toolchains, write programs, cook builds, serve outputs into an Amiga instance and review results without switching between unrelated environments.

07 / STORAGE

Disks you can actually inspect

Host folder-backed disks and media repositories avoid treating every hard disk as an opaque HDF. ADF floppies and ISO optical media live in managed roots; guest filesystem and autoboot work has its own qualification gates.

08 / REMOTE CONTROL

Your other Cradle is still yours

Local and remote tabs, LAN discovery, instance lifecycle controls and host identity make multi-computer labs possible. Portable whole-machine migration is a separately planned capability.

09 / APPLIANCE BUILDER

Take the Amiga beyond the desktop

Build managed appliance cards for supported Raspberry Pi pathways and prepare PiStorm configurations. Each board needs its own boot and hardware validation; a completed image alone is not that proof.

Actual ACKitchen code editor with a C program, target stove selector, Cook and Serve actions and Amiga AutoDocs reference panel — **ACKitchen · write and cook**A real C source editor, a target stove, Amiga AutoDocs and a Serve destination.

**ACKitchen · write and cook**A real C source editor, a target stove, Amiga AutoDocs and a Serve destination.

Actual ACCradle ACBuild tools page showing per-instance tool versions, deferred updates and Update all results — **ACBuild · see what changed**Per-instance tool inventory, updates and evidence of what was—and wasn't—changed.

**ACBuild · see what changed**Per-instance tool inventory, updates and evidence of what was—and wasn't—changed.

Docker-inspired. Amiga-native.

Like Docker's discipline.
Not Docker's container.

Docker showed developers the value of declared environments, repeatability and isolation. Cradle applies those ideas to complete Amiga systems. This is an analogy between workflows, not a claim of container compatibility.

THE UNIT

A whole Amiga, not a process

A container shares the host's kernel. A Cradle instance is a complete emulated Amiga, with its own CPU, chipset and ROM choices, AmigaOS and disks.

THE DATA

Disks that belong to each Amiga

Folder-backed disks stay with their machine. Current snapshots protect stopped DH0 disks, not live CPU/RAM state.

THE HARDWARE

Cards for real machines

Cradle can prepare appliance cards for supported targets, including Raspberry Pi; PiStorm hardware qualification is a separate gate.

Cradle and Docker, side by side: all seven principles, from recipes to Open-family devices bridging the host, in Featured.

Docker is a trademark of Docker, Inc. Docker and AmigaChrome are independent projects; Cradle does not run Docker images as AmigaOS machines. Host build jobs may use a containerised toolchain where configured, but the guest Amiga remains a complete guest environment.

The developer's acceleration

Less rebuilding environments.
More building Amiga software.

Cradle is the repeatable testbed behind the Team's OpenUp, OpenGPU, OpenAudio, AC090 and game-porting work. Instead of rebuilding a precious Workbench every time something breaks, keep a known test target and a visible trail from source to guest behaviour.

01 / CHOOSE

Start from a recipe

Pick the OS, CPU, graphics, media and libraries needed for a useful test. Keep your personal instance separate.

02 / COOK

Build in ACKitchen

Open a project, select a supported stove and compile. Source, output and toolchain choice stay visible.

03 / SERVE

Deploy to an Amiga

Send the built artifact to a named instance rather than reinstalling it manually into each Workbench.

04 / OBSERVE

Run and record

Use the guest display, screenshots, diagnostics and logs to see what actually happened.

05 / IMPROVE

Fix and repeat

Keep the evidence, update the affected tool or program and try again against a known configuration.

Automation with a real test environment: ACKitchen can take structured orders from a local inbox, with opt-in GitHub order transport; ACBuild and Cradle provide observable build and instance controls. That lets the Team repeat a source-to-guest workflow rather than rely on somebody's one carefully configured Workbench. Qualification still matters: full unattended cross-instance test matrices and machine migration remain future integration work, not finished features.

OpenUp applications

Keep office, browser, printing and media tests isolated, with real AmigaOS files and configurable guest devices.

Games and graphics ports

Try a program across graphics, controller and memory setups without changing the home machine someone actually uses.

Hardware and core engineering

Record firmware, device, runtime and build provenance when diagnosing AC090, storage, networking and graphics changes.

Beyond a browser tab

Make an Amiga
you can take with you.

Cradle's appliance builder turns a configured environment into a target card image. The goal is an Amiga that powers up straight into its own world—from a small Raspberry Pi setup to future physical-A1200 integration—without first navigating a Linux desktop.

Raspberry Pi build and test paths exist in the engineering programme. PiStorm appliance cards have been produced, but actual A1200 hardware operation must be demonstrated before it is advertised as validated.

See the wider hardware strategy ↗

ACBuild's Images panel: the latest Raspberry Pi appliance image ready to write, and a card written and checked at 100 percent — **ACBuild · writing a card**Actual development capture. Building a card is a distinct step from proving it boots on a particular board.

**ACBuild · writing a card**Actual development capture. Building a card is a distinct step from proving it boots on a particular board.

Know what exists. See what's coming.

Ambitious software.
Honest engineering gates.

Cradle is under active development. These are the capabilities shown in the current development work, alongside the parts of the vision that still require implementation or physical-world tests.

In the development builds

Named local instances, hardware detail, independent start/stop and archives.
ACCookbook recipe selection and provisioned AmigaOS/AROS test environments.
Stopped-DH0 snapshots with scheduling and safe restore behaviour.
ACBuild tools inventory, per-instance updates and retained replaced files.
ACKitchen C/assembly development workflows, projects, orders and cook/serve previews.
Diagnostic ZIPs, screenshots, lifecycle logs and managed patch history.
LAN Cradle discovery and early remote-instance management surfaces.
Appliance image preparation, subject to target-specific hardware verification.

Design direction — not yet a shipped promise

Full resumable machine checkpoints with CPU/RAM, devices and storage captured consistently.
Single-file portable Amiga packages with recipes, identity and required media manifests.
Read-only system layers plus OpenUp and personal-change overlays.
Whole environments described, networked and brought up as one group.
Live migration between local/remote Cradles with compatible backend contracts.
Wider GDB, Amiga E and BlitzBasic toolchain/debugger qualification.
Validated PiStorm hardware deployment and additional appliance targets.

Good questions

What Cradle is.
And what it isn't.

Can I run Docker containers inside an Amiga?

Cradle doesn't package an Amiga as a Linux container and it doesn't add a Docker engine to AmigaOS. It applies similar ideas—recipe-led environments, isolation and repeatable workflows—to fully represented Amiga machines.

Does a snapshot capture a running Amiga exactly as it was?

Not yet. Current Cradle snapshots preserve the stopped instance's DH0 system disk, with scheduling and protective restores. Full CPU/RAM/device-state capture for resumable whole-instance checkpoints is on the roadmap and has harder consistency requirements.

Can I move a complete live machine between hosts today?

Cradle has local/remote discovery and management paths, but a portable, fully restorable whole-machine export and live migration require further engineering. Recipes help reproduce configuration; they are not themselves guarantees of identical disk contents.

Does Cradle automatically test all the Team's game ports?

Its value today is isolating environments and bringing together build, deploy, guest observation, snapshots and reports. Automated repeatable test matrices and formal release gates are a development goal; every project still needs an actual guest run and evidence before being called qualified.

Is Cradle itself an open project?

AmigaChrome's original platform code is MIT-licensed in its repository. Third-party OS components, ROMs, games and compiler tools keep their own licences. Cradle doesn't redistribute commercial AmigaOS ROMs or software merely because it can manage a machine that uses them.

Open tooling for a real Amiga future

Keep your Workbench.
Multiply the possibilities.

One familiar Amiga for the day. A few more to test a new game, restore a disk, build an application or investigate tomorrow's hardware. Cradle makes each environment visible—and brings the community's development work together.

Explore the OPEN architecture ↗ Find a game or software port ↗ Follow AmigaChrome development ↗

A whole Amiga.On demand.

One console.As many Amigas as you need.