Feedback about features needed to make automated docker desktop -> orbstack migrations much better

[mac-anysphere]

Hi I work on DevEx here at Cursor and just finished deploying a whole bunch of code to automate migrating our devs from docker desktop to orbstack. It was probably the most involved migration code I had to write as part of a general environment setup project I did and in the end, I still needed devs to do a whole bunch of manual steps to execute the migration, which I didn't have to do for pretty much any other tool other than a couple of authentication steps.

In the spirit of feedback, here are things you can do to make that process work much more smoothly for me or anyone else in the future:

1. Add a --status status flag to the orbctl login command. Much like gh auth status command for the gh tool. The only way I could check status programmatically was running the command, which popped up a browser if you were not logged in. Implementing this feature going forward It would still be helpful for us because we are going to set up new laptops with orb out of the box.

2. Let us specify the login method with orb right away so people don't get confused how to log in. For us we would like it just to go into Google automatically. So something like orbctl login --google, I would also like to be able to specify the organization right away so they don't have to select it. That gets confusing for people too, so a orbctl login --org=anysphere or similar when provisioning new users.

3. Don't require people to start the orb UX to do migration actions. Let us start it from the orbctl command directly. So this means whatever you do on first launch to install Docker and such in the user's path. And also for triggering the Docker desktop to or stack migration action you show a purple button in the UX and and to be able just to do this automatically so I don't have to tell users to do it manually would be a great help. orbctl first-setup and orbctl migrate-docker for example, along with --status flags and being able to run them again or uninstall them just in case they screw up.

4. Have homebrew deal with Orb being installed already or similar or when you try to uninstall it and you removed Orb via another method that it will handle that gracefully also. I'm not sure if you manage that brew recipe or not.

5. A command that would really remove Docker desktop from a machine would be helpful. I wrote a lot of code to try to make it happen and it's very painful and still not reliable. If you guys could just take that, that would be super helpful for us.

6. Support for docker compose. An orb only installation only supports the older form of docker-compose and I had to migrate a bunch of internal code with conditionals to use the older form for macOS and newer form for Linux.

I'm attaching all the code I wrote to deal with this to show you what I had to do. If we could do all of this with just a few orbctl commands and the user wouldn't have to interact with anything, that would be amazing! My dream example:

orbctl start --yes
orbctl first-setup --choose=docker --yes

if orbctl login --needs-login; then
  orbctl login --google --org="$ORB_ORG_ID" --user="$USER_EMAIL" --yes
fi

if orbctl migrate-docker --needs-migration; then
  orbctl migrate-docker --yes
  orbctl migrate-docker --remove-docker-desktop --yes
fi

There are other cases in our codebase where I need to check login state without presenting the login UX, similarly with the docker migration state, so in general queryability of the status of things is super helpful!

docker_orbstack.py
homebrew_deps.py

[kdrag0n]

Hi! Thanks for the feedback. We already support most of this:

1: orb login is a no-op if already logged in, and you can already pass a domain for SSO:

Log in to your OrbStack account and activate your license, if any.

If you are already logged in, this command will do nothing unless you add --force.

Usage:
  orb login [flags]

Examples:
  orb login

Flags:
      --domain string   Domain for SSO
  -f, --force           Force re-login if already logged in
  -h, --help            help for login

2: On the Enterprise plan we already support enforcing a preset SSO domain via MDM.

3: There's already an orb migrate docker command.

6: docker compose is already supported and should work out of the box. Can you run orb doctor to see why it's not working?

[mac-anysphere]

I would also recommend that orb -v / orbctl -v and orb --version, etc work along with orb version.

Here is #6:

❯ docker -v
Docker version 28.3.3, build 980b856

❯ orbctl version  
Version: 2.0.4 (2000400)
Commit: bdc68f44f20561e398d2a70f45d00385fa55eadf (v2.0.4)

🍎 ~/.orbstack/bin 🔒 ✔︎ 
❯ ll
lrwxrwxrwx - mac 15 Oct 17:27 docker -> /Applications/OrbStack.app/Contents/MacOS/xbin/docker
lrwxrwxrwx - mac 15 Oct 17:27 docker-compose -> /Applications/OrbStack.app/Contents/MacOS/xbin/docker-compose
lrwxrwxrwx - mac 15 Oct 17:27 docker-credential-osxkeychain -> /Applications/OrbStack.app/Contents/MacOS/xbin/docker-credential-osxkeychain
lrwxrwxrwx - mac 15 Oct 17:27 kubectl -> /Applications/OrbStack.app/Contents/MacOS/xbin/kubectl
lrwxrwxrwx - mac 15 Oct 17:27 orb -> /Applications/OrbStack.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/orb
lrwxrwxrwx - mac 15 Oct 17:27 orbctl -> /Applications/OrbStack.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/orbctl

🍎 ~/.orbstack/bin 🔒 ✔︎ 
❯ orb doctor
🩺 Running OrbStack doctor...

Checking docker command... ✓ (found at /usr/local/bin/docker)
Checking docker-compose command... ✓ (found at /usr/local/bin/docker-compose)
Checking kubectl command... ✓ (found at /usr/local/bin/kubectl)
Scanning PATH for conflicts... ✓
Checking Docker CLI plugins... ✓

✅ All checks passed! OrbStack is properly configured.

🍎 ~/.orbstack/bin 🔒 ✔︎ 
❯ docker compose
docker: unknown command: docker compose

Run 'docker --help' for more information

🍎 ~/.orbstack/bin 🔒 ✔︎ 
❯ 

❯ echo "$PATH" | tr ':' '\n'
/Users/mac/.cursor/extensions/ms-python.debugpy-2025.14.1-darwin-arm64/bundled/scripts/noConfigScripts
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/uv/0.9.5/uv-aarch64-apple-darwin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/pipx-ruff/0.14.2/bin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/node/22.14.0/bin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/go/1.25.3/bin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/python/3.12.12/bin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/bun/1.3.1/bin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/pnpm/9.12.3
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/uv/0.9.7/uv-aarch64-apple-darwin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/ubi-chmln-sd/1.0.0
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/ubi-bufbuild-buf/1.59.0
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/ubi-bazelbuild-bazelisk/1.27.0
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/ubi-planetscale-cli/0.259.0
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/pipx-isort/7.0.0/bin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/pipx-ruff/0.14.3/bin
/Users/mac/.local/share/mise/installs/pipx-detect-secrets/1.5.0/bin
/opt/homebrew/bin
/opt/homebrew/sbin
/usr/local/bin
/System/Cryptexes/App/usr/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/local/bin
/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/bin
/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/appleinternal/bin
/Library/Apple/usr/bin
/Users/mac/Library/pnpm
/Users/mac/.local/bin
/Users/mac/.cargo/bin
/Users/mac/Documents/src/everysphere/bin
/Users/mac/.orbstack/bin

[kdrag0n]

On Enterprise we also support providing default settings via MDM.

[mac-anysphere]

1. But if you're not logged in, it pops up a browser, I want to control that behavior and not have it happen in some cases when I check.

2. We don't have Okta SSO setup with Orb, so this would still be nice to have.

I'm out currently so I can't check the other items but will get back to you on them.

[mac-anysphere]

Following up on this @kdrag0n . We noticed that docker compose started working. Any progress on orbctl first-setup --choose=docker --yes ? Not needing our engineers to run the orbstack UX to get set up, add to paths, install helpers, etc will be very helpful for unattended installs and MDM systems. Unless that is what you mean by "On Enterprise we also support providing default settings via MDM." ??

Also migrate was not documented in the orbctl -h command.

[0] mac@mac:~/Documents/src/e5 ➜ orb -h                                                                                                                                                                                                                               main 
OrbStack's short "orb" command can be used in 3 ways:

1. Start a Linux shell.
   Just run "orb" with no arguments.
   Usage: orb

2. Run commands on Linux, like "orbctl run".
   Prefix any command with "orb" to run it in Linux.
   Usage: orb [flags] <command> [args...]
   Example: orb uname -a

   The default user and machine will be used, unless specified with flags.
   For example, to log in to "ubuntu" as root: orb -m ubuntu -u root uname -a

   Use "orbctl run --help" for a list of flags.
   If you prefer SSH, use "orbctl ssh" for details.

3. Control Linux machines, like "orbctl".
   Start, stop, and manage OrbStack and its machines with any "orbctl" subcommand.
   Usage: orb <subcommand> [args...]

   Use "orbctl --help" for a list of subcommands.

For Docker containers, use the "docker" command. "orb" is for managing OrbStack and machines.
mac@mac:~/Documents/src/e5 ➜ orbctl -h                                                                                                                                                                                                                                main 
Use and manage OrbStack and its machines.

The listed commands can be used with either "orbctl" or "orb".

You can also prefix commands with "orb" to run them on Linux. For example:
    orb uname -a
will run "uname -a" on macOS, and is equivalent to:
    orbctl run uname -a

In this mode, the default user and machine will be used.

Usage:
  orbctl [command]

Linux machines:
  clone       Clone a machine
  create      Create a new machine
  default     Get or set the default machine
  delete      Delete a machine
  export      Export a machine to a file
  import      Import a machine from a file
  info        Get info about a machine
  list        List machines
  logs        Show logs for a machine
  pull        Copy files from Linux
  push        Copy files to Linux
  rename      Rename a machine
  restart     Restart a machine
  run         Run command on Linux
  ssh         Show SSH details

Containers:
  debug       Debug a Docker container with extra tools
  docker      Extension commands for Docker
  k8s         Show commands for using Kubernetes

General:
  config      Change OrbStack settings
  doctor      Check if OrbStack is properly configured and in control
  login       Log in and activate your OrbStack license
  logout      Log out of your OrbStack account
  report      Gather info for a bug report
  reset       Delete all Linux and Docker data
  start       Start OrbStack or a machine
  status      Check whether OrbStack is running
  stop        Stop OrbStack or a machine
  update      Update OrbStack

Additional Commands:
  help        Help about any command
  version     Show OrbStack version

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for orbctl

Use "orbctl [command] --help" for more information about a command.