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name: apple-container description: Apple's native container runtime for macOS. Use this skill instead of Docker when running on macOS with Apple silicon. The container CLI provides OCI-compatible container management optimized for Apple silicon.

Apple Container

Overview

Apple Container is a native container platform for macOS that runs Linux containers as lightweight virtual machines. It should be used instead of Docker on macOS with Apple silicon.

The container CLI is installed and available. It produces and consumes OCI-compatible container images, so images work with any standard container registry.

Requirements

• Mac with Apple silicon
• macOS 26 or later

Quick Start

Copy# Start the system service (required once)
container system start

# Run a container
container run -it ubuntu:latest /bin/bash

# Build an image
container build -t myimage .

# List containers
container list

# Stop a container
container stop <container-id>

Common Commands

Docker Compatibility

The container CLI uses familiar Docker-like syntax:

Troubleshooting

Builder Freezes

The buildkit builder can freeze, often due to insufficient memory. To fix:

1. Find and kill the frozen builder process:

   Copyps aux | grep buildkit
   kill -9 <pid>
   

2. Restart with more resources:

   Copycontainer builder start --cpus 6 --memory 8g
   

References

• Tutorial - Guided tour building a simple web server
• How-To Guide - Feature-specific guides
• Technical Overview - Architecture and internals
• Command Reference - Full CLI documentation