Run the Latest OpenCode on macOS 11 Big Sur with Docker and Save $10,000

The author owns a 2013 MacBook Pro running macOS 11 Big Sur, which Apple no longer updates; OpenCode now requires macOS 13, and its pre‑compiled packages are built for that version, making a new Mac costing nearly ten thousand dollars the only apparent solution.

Three direct installation attempts all failed: using npm or the official installer, trying the opencode-darwin-amd64-baseline binary (claimed to support macOS 10 but actually not), and compiling the source from GitHub, which requires Bun—a runtime unavailable on the old OS.

The breakthrough was to install Docker Desktop 4.24.2, the last Docker release that runs on macOS 11, then pull the official OpenCode container image from GitHub Container Registry, rename it to opencode-docker, and verify the image appears twice with the same IMAGE ID, confirming no extra disk usage.

Running the container uses a command that mounts the current directory, sets the working directory, matches the host UID/GID, and defines HOME=/app to prevent OpenCode errors. The flags are explained: -v "$(pwd)":/app mounts the folder, -w /app sets the container’s workdir, -u "$(id -u):$(id -g)" runs as the current user, and -e HOME=/app points Home inside the container.

To simplify usage, the author created ~/.zsh/opencode.sh containing two functions. opencode() checks whether Docker Desktop is running, silently starts it with open -g /Applications/Docker.app if needed, waits for the daemon, then launches the OpenCode container with the same flags as above. stop‑opencode() uses osascript -e 'quit app "Docker"' to quit Docker gracefully and waits until the daemon stops.

After sourcing the script ( source ~/.zsh/opencode.sh), typing opencode in any directory automatically starts Docker, pulls the image if necessary, and drops the user into the OpenCode environment; stop‑opencode shuts down Docker and frees resources. The author notes the experience is not as smooth as a native install, but it enables continued use of OpenCode on an older Mac without purchasing a new machine.