Install Speedwave

Speedwave supports macOS and Windows. The installer packages all necessary virtualization and container dependencies, eliminating the need to separately install Docker Desktop or third-party container engines. Linux host environments are not supported.

System requirements

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
System RAM	16 GiB	32 GiB
Free disk space	10 GiB	20 GiB

Speedwave will initialize with less than 16 GiB of memory, but performance may be constrained. On macOS, Speedwave inspects host memory on launch, displaying a diagnostic warning if host memory is below 16 GiB, and allocates approximately half of available RAM to the virtual machine (e.g. 8 GiB VM allocation on a 16 GiB host). On Windows, memory scheduling is managed dynamically by WSL2.

Download

Install packages are published under GitHub Releases. Select the appropriate binary for your system architecture:

Platform	Architecture	Installation package
macOS	Apple Silicon	Speedwave_<version>_macOS_Apple_Silicon.dmg
macOS	Intel (x86_64)	Speedwave_<version>_macOS_Intel.dmg
Windows 10 and 11	64-bit	Speedwave_<version>_x64-setup.exe (or .msi for automated enterprise deployment)

All official binaries are cryptographically signed. To verify release signatures before execution, see Binary authenticity.

Windows installations require hardware virtualization enabled in system firmware (BIOS/UEFI) and initial administrator privileges to provision the WSL2 subsystem.

Installation procedure

macOS

1. Open the downloaded .dmg disk image and drag Speedwave into your Applications folder.
2. Launch Speedwave from Launchpad or Finder. macOS will perform standard initial signature validation.
3. The Setup Wizard will automatically provision the embedded Lima virtual machine using Apple’s native Virtualization Framework.

On Apple Silicon hardware, Speedwave uses Rosetta emulation to run x86 container workloads alongside ARM64 images.

Windows

1. Execute the downloaded .exe setup package.
2. Launch Speedwave from the Windows Start menu.
3. If WSL2 is not detected, the wizard will install the prerequisite subsystem. A system restart may be required before reopening Speedwave.
4. The wizard provisions an isolated WSL2 distribution named Speedwave and starts the embedded container engine.

The Speedwave WSL2 distribution operates independently of other installed Linux distributions and will not alter existing WSL configurations.

If automated WSL2 provisioning is restricted by enterprise policy, enable the required Windows features from an elevated PowerShell session:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart
wsl --update

Corporate VPN compatibility on Windows

Windows 11 version 22H2 (build 22621) or higher is required for routing container traffic across corporate VPN adapters. On earlier builds, standard internet connectivity remains operational, but internal corporate intranet endpoints routed exclusively via VPN may be unreachable from container processes.

Welcome to Speedwave.

first-run setup · ~2 minutes

✓check environmentdone

✓start virtual machinedone

3build imagesrunning

4create your first project

5start containers

6finalize

Setup wizard workflow

The Setup Wizard coordinates six automated provisioning stages, persisting state to ~/.speedwave/setup_state.json to allow interrupted installations to resume: environment verification, virtual machine initialization, container image compilation, initial project creation, service topology launch, and CLI binary registration. Once complete, your workstation is ready for project development. Review How Speedwave works for architectural background.

System verification

After setup finishes, verify your installation from the terminal:

speedwave check

A healthy installation outputs:

speedwave check OK -- all system checks passed

The speedwave check diagnostic utility inspects host permissions and container compose definitions against security policies. If any checks fail, the tool outputs the failing rule identifier along with remediation guidance. See SecurityCheck validation rules for complete rule definitions.