OpenCode School
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Lesson 2

Installing OpenCode

Download and install the OpenCode Desktop app.

OpenCode can be used in many ways — as a library, a command-line interface, a terminal-based chat app, or an IDE extension. But in OpenCode School, we’ll be using OpenCode Desktop.

Why Desktop?

OpenCode Desktop provides a familiar GUI (Graphical User Interface) — windows, buttons, and menus that you interact with using your mouse and keyboard. If you’ve used apps like Slack, Discord, or VS Code, the Desktop app will feel right at home.

It also has features we’ll explore later in this course, like Workspaces for running multiple sessions in parallel.

OpenCode Desktop is currently in beta, but it’s stable enough for daily use and improving rapidly with new releases.

Install OpenCode Desktop

Choose your platform:

macOS (Homebrew)

If you have Homebrew installed, run:

brew install --cask opencode-desktop

Or download the .dmg directly from opencode.ai/download. Choose Apple Silicon if you have an M1, M2, M3, or M4 chip. Choose Intel if you have an older Mac.

Not sure which chip you have? Click the Apple menu () > “About This Mac” — it’s listed right at the top.

Windows

Download the Windows installer from opencode.ai/download and run it. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the installation.

For Windows users, we recommend installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). WSL lets you run a full Linux environment directly inside Windows. It’s free, built into Windows 10 and 11, and takes just one command to install. See Windows (WSL) documentation.

Linux

Download the package for your distribution from opencode.ai/download:

  • .deb for Ubuntu, Debian, and derivatives
  • .rpm for Fedora, RHEL, and derivatives

Install it with your package manager. For example, on Ubuntu:

sudo dpkg -i opencode-desktop_*.deb

Verify the installation

Launch OpenCode Desktop from your applications menu or dock. You should see the app open with a welcome screen.

That’s it — OpenCode is installed and ready to go.

If you run into issues, check the OpenCode troubleshooting guide or ask for help on the OpenCode Discord.

Other OpenCode interfaces?

For reference, here are the other ways to use OpenCode. You don’t need any of these for this course, but they’re good to know about:

  • Terminal (TUI) — A full chat interface that runs inside your terminal. Popular with developers who prefer keyboard-driven workflows. Install with curl -fsSL https://opencode.ai/install | bash.
  • CLI — For running one-off commands like opencode run "explain this function". Same installation as the TUI.
  • IDE extensions — Available for VS Code, Cursor, Zed, and Windsurf. Install from your editor’s extension marketplace.

All of these share the same underlying engine and configuration, so most of the things you learn in this course apply across interfaces.