Kakehashi runs macOS ARM64 binaries on Linux without emulation

Kakehashi translates BSD syscalls instead of emulating the CPU, so unmodified macOS ARM64 binaries run natively on Linux. The project posted to Show HN on August 2, per its GitHub page.

That's a different approach than the emulation layers most cross-platform tools rely on. It matters for anyone stuck running Mac-only build tools in Linux CI, or trying to build macOS-flavored agent sandboxes without buying Apple hardware.

It's a Rust userspace layer that loads Darwin Mach-O executables directly and maps a freestanding libSystem for aarch64-apple-darwin. BSD syscalls get translated at that boundary, but guest code otherwise runs on the real CPU the whole time. Overhead only shows up when a syscall crosses over.

The repo has pulled 268 stars and 68 commits. The Show HN post drew 225 points and 58 comments in its first day.

What actually works

Per the maintainers, working as of the August 2 post includes multi-threaded 7zz with compression and curl over HTTP and HTTPS. Clang test probes and general threading work too.

The repo doesn't yet claim full curl compatibility, Security.framework support, or working git, calling those "not a product claim (yet)."