how does the docker guest orchestrate a completely different virtualization system? is the guest container in docker given access to the host system to then spin up the apple vm guest? to me this seems very risky in terms of security.
It actually works more like a frontend talking to an API than 'inside' touches 'outside'. The container just reaches out over host.docker.internal to the Lume daemon running on your Mac. Lume is the only thing talking to Apple's Vz API and spinning up VMs. The container itself never gets direct low‑level access to the host's virtualization stack, so you're not giving Docker root powers over your Mac's hypervisor, just a handy layer that calls into a service with the right privileges
It actually works more like a frontend talking to an API than 'inside' touches 'outside'. The container just reaches out over host.docker.internal to the Lume daemon running on your Mac. Lume is the only thing talking to Apple's Vz API and spinning up VMs. The container itself never gets direct low‑level access to the host's virtualization stack, so you're not giving Docker root powers over your Mac's hypervisor, just a handy layer that calls into a service with the right privileges