Silo

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Fast, native, open-source launcher for running Windows Steam games on Apple Silicon Macs.

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# Silo

**A fast, native way to run Windows Steam games on Apple-silicon Macs.**

100% SwiftUI · Apple GPTK4/D3DMetal + DXMT graphics

[![Latest release](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/mikaelhug/Silo)](https://github.com/mikaelhug/Silo/releases)
![Platform](https://img.shields.io/badge/platform-macOS%2015%2B%20%C2%B7%20Apple%20Silicon-blue)
![Swift](https://img.shields.io/badge/Swift%206-strict%20concurrency-orange)
[![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-LGPL--2.1+-blue)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mikaelhug/Silo/main/LICENSE)

[Discord](https://discord.gg/kNysBA9VU5) ·
[Website](https://mikaelhug.github.io/Silo/) ·
[Releases](https://github.com/mikaelhug/Silo/releases) ·
[Architecture](CLAUDE.md) ·
[Wine build](WINE-BUILD.md) ·
[Status](STATUS.md)

</div>

Silo stands up a real **Windows Steam client inside one shared Wine bottle**, and launches your games
**co-resident with it** on a Metal graphics backend it picks automatically — Apple's D3DMetal, or DXMT for
titles it can't run — so Steamworks and Steam DRM just work, no emulator, no fakery. It downloads its own
Wine, imports Apple's Game Porting Toolkit from your `.dmg`, and self-updates from GitHub Releases.

## Highlights

- **Real Steam, real DRM.** Steamworks IPC is prefix-scoped, so Silo runs each game in the same
  bottle as a logged-in Windows Steam client — auth tickets, ownership, and online features intact.
  Sign in once; Steam caches the login.
- **Automatic graphics backend.** All Steam games share **one** bottle, and Silo picks the Metal backend
  per game: **GPTK / D3DMetal** (Apple's D3D10/11/12 → Metal) by default, **DXMT** (a direct D3D10/11 →
  Metal layer) for 32-bit titles and as the fallback when GPTK can't drive a game — it remembers the switch
  for next time. Override to a specific backend per game whenever you want; GPTK and DXMT games co-reside.
- **Non-Steam games too.** Add any `.exe` (or run its installer); each manual game lives in its
  **own isolated Wine prefix** with the same **Automatic** graphics backend as Steam games (or an
  explicit override), plus per-game env flags and launch options.
- **Desktop shortcuts.** Right-click any game (Steam or non-Steam) → *Create Desktop Shortcut* for a
  double-clickable launcher that plays it through Silo — same backend, same bottle, Steam client and all —
  straight from the Desktop, Spotlight, or Launchpad.
- **Self-contained.** No Homebrew, no external dependencies: Wine comes from Silo's Releases
  (SHA-256 verified, fail-closed), GPTK from your Apple-downloaded `.dmg`, updates in-app.
- **Native and event-driven.** SwiftUI + Swift 6 strict concurrency; zero polling — game exits,
  Steam readiness, and log tailing are all kqueue-driven. Bottles are relocatable to an external
  drive (with a progress bar; exFAT refused).
- **Guardrails everywhere.** A silent GPTK→wined3d fallback is detected and surfaced instead of a
  black window; a corrupt `config.json` restores from its automatic backup; a bottles move or
  self-update is refused while a game or Steam client is live (and won't run over a process orphaned
  by a prior crash); launch logs open with the fully resolved environment.

## How it works

1. **Bottle** — provision **one** shared Wine prefix, install Windows Steam into it, and launch it with
   the CEF flags that make its UI actually paint under Wine. Every Steam game runs co-resident here.
2. **Discovery** — parse the bottle's `appmanifest_*.acf` (+ `libraryfolders.vdf`) into typed games.
3. **Backend choice** — per launch, Silo picks GPTK or DXMT (32-bit → DXMT, else GPTK) or honors your
   per-game override; a silent GPTK failure flips an Automatic game to DXMT for next time.
4. **Graphics overlay** — inject the chosen backend's modules into the Wine **runtime**'s own `lib/wine`
   tree (GPTK in place; DXMT on an APFS clone of the runtime), forced builtin at launch so nothing can
   shadow them. Idempotent, self-repairing.
5. **Launch** — resolve `(game, backend) → {prefix, runtime}` through one deterministic dispatch point
   (`BottleResolver`) and spawn the game co-resident with its Steam client, streaming to a per-game log.

Silo builds, tests, and browses a library with **zero runtimes installed** — everything
runtime-dependent degrades to a guided setup state, never a crash.

## First-run setup

The Library shows a guided setup until the pieces are in place:

1. **Import GPTK** — pick Apple's Game Porting Toolkit `.dmg`
   ([developer.apple.com/games](https://developer.apple.com/games/game-porting-toolkit/), free
   Apple ID required); Silo mounts it and extracts the D3DMetal layer.
2. **Set up** — one click chains the rest: download Wine (~250 MB) and the DXMT runtime from
   [Releases](https://github.com/mikaelhug/Silo/releases), install Windows Steam into the shared bottle
   (with its fonts and VC++ runtimes), then launch Steam and sign in once — Steam caches the login.

Then hit **Play**. Steam games default to **Automatic** graphics (GPTK/DXMT chosen per game, overridable in
per-game settings, which also cover the executable, performance flags — msync, Metal HUD, MetalFX,
raytracing, and D3DMetal's Metal 3 / Metal 4 renderer — and launch options). Settings (⌘,) manages
Wine/GPTK/DXMT runtime versions (import as many GPTKs as you like and switch the default in one click),
bottle tools
(Retina mode, winecfg/regedit), bottle location, and updates.

> **Gatekeeper:** the app is ad-hoc signed, so a downloaded build is quarantined until you
> right-click → Open (or `xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine Silo.app`).

## Build from source

Requires a Swift 6 toolchain — **Command Line Tools are sufficient, no Xcode needed**.

```sh
swift build              # compile
./Scripts/test.sh        # test suite — passes with no Wine/GPTK/Steam installed
./Scripts/build-app.sh   # assemble + ad-hoc sign dist/Silo.app
./Scripts/run.sh         # build the app and open it
./Scripts/dev.sh         # fast iteration: swift run silo
```

`Scripts/test.sh` wraps `swift test` with the Swift Testing search path Command Line Tools needs
(plain `swift test` fails with "no such module 'Testing'" without Xcode).

### Local Wine without GitHub

Pushing only powers the CI Wine build. To exercise the whole app locally:

```sh
./Scripts/build-wine.sh 26.2.0                # ~30–60 min, from CrossOver source
./Scripts/install-local-wine.sh .wine-build/install wine-cx-26.2.0
```

Then in the app: Settings → **Wine** → Set default, **GPTK** → import your `.dmg`, and the
Library onboarding's **Set up Steam bottle** runs everything else locally. Building DXMT
additionally needs full Xcode's Metal toolchain — see `Scripts/build-dxmt.sh`.

CI runs build + test on every push; tagging `v*` publishes an ad-hoc-signed `Silo.zip` (with its
`.sha256`) via `release.yml`. Every version number lives in one file, `versions.env`.

## Wine sourcing

Silo's Wine is compiled **from CrossOver's open (LGPL) sources in Silo's own CI** and published to
its Releases — no third-party prebuilt dependency, reproducible from `versions.env`. DXMT is built
from its upstream (`3Shain/dxmt`), pinned in `versions.env`, against that same Wine. Apple's D3DMetal
is imported from the user's GPTK `.dmg` (Apple-login-gated, so it is never auto-downloaded). See
[WINE-BUILD.md](WINE-BUILD.md).

## Sandboxing

Silo is **not** App-Sandboxed (see `Resources/silo.entitlements`): it executes `wine` outside its
bundle and reads/writes `~/Library/Application Support` and the bottles, which the sandbox forbids.
User-chosen paths go through the system file picker (powerbox) to avoid TCC denials.

## Legal

Silo is licensed under the [LGPL-2.1-or-later](LICENSE). Wine is redistributed under the same
license from CrossOver's published sources; GPTK stays your own Apple-licensed download. Silo never
bundles or auto-downloads a Steam-API emulator — games talk to the real Steam client you sign into,
in your own account. You are responsible for compliance with Steam's Subscriber Agreement and
applicable law.

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