Docker Decluttered: Escaping Container Complexity on macOS

Docker Decluttered: Escaping Container Complexity on macOS A decade into the container revolution, and we're still fighting with Docker on macOS. Recent discussions on Hacker News highlight growing frustration with container sprawl, mysterious resource leaks, and the cognitive overhead of managing multiple compose files across projects. The core issue isn't Docker itself—it's the impedance mismatch between Docker's Linux-first architecture and macOS's virtualization layer. This manifests in three key pain points: Runaway resource consumption (especially on M1/M2 machines) Incompatible volume mounts between architectures Config drift between team members' local setups The Manual Cleanup Dance Most macOS teams end up with some variation of these cleanup rituals: # The nuclear option docker system prune -af --volumes # The targeted cleanup docker container ls -a | grep Exit | cut -d ' ' -f 1 | xargs docker rm docker image ls | grep none | awk '{ print $3 }' | xargs docker rmi # The volume