Setting up OpenCode with Ollama and sbx on Mac
This technical guide explains how to set up a local development environment for Large Language Models using Ollama, OpenCode, and Docker sandboxes on Apple Silicon. It provides specific configurations for running models like Qwen 3.8 and Gemma 4 locally.
Why it matters
It demonstrates the increasing feasibility of running powerful, private AI models on consumer hardware for software development.
How to get started with running Ollama local models with Opencode and Docker Sandboxes.
Viable local LLM development is here. With powerful models like Qwen 3.8 and Gemma4 we can now finally use these models to build out web applications. I'm using a Apple Macbook pro m5 48GB model. I think this is the sweet spot for local development as it allows you to run 30B models with a decent sized context.
Why I use Ollama . To be frank it's just easy. It has mlx now, so it's fast on Apple silicon. It has a pretty good model directory. It is also very stable and won't crash.
Why Opencode . Well, we need to start somewhere with this blog and opencode is a great harness.
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