Description
OpenCode is an open source agent for software development, usable in the terminal, through an IDE integration, or as a standalone desktop application currently in beta. After installation through a script or a package manager, the agent is started in the relevant project directory and gets to know the codebase through an init routine, which produces a versionable context file with project structure and code patterns. For the actual work, two built-in agents are available and can be switched with the Tab key: a full-access mode for implementation and a read-only mode for analysis and planning, complemented by a general subagent for complex multistep tasks.
A modern terminal emulator and an API key for at least one LLM provider are required, or alternatively the curated Zen model access can be used, for which the provider currently runs a waitlist for early access according to its own website, offering hand-picked models that have been tested and benchmarked for coding agents. For Windows, a full Bun-based installation is still in progress according to the documentation, so a different installation path is recommended there for now. In its base setup, OpenCode itself does not store any code or context data, though shared conversations run through the provider's own CDN and are cached there whenever the sharing feature is actively used.
The positioning sits between a freely configurable, open source tool for individual developers and an enterprise variant with central SSO integration into an internal AI gateway for larger organizations. Anyone looking for full control over the choice of model provider and the installation path will find OpenCode an alternative to closed, provider-locked coding agents. For teams that prefer a fully managed, single-vendor system without their own provider configuration, the setup effort here is comparatively higher.
