Windows has been surprisingly good about this (lid closed, laptop awake). I have a number of always-closed laptops deployed for customers (+ mother in law). Some are desktops that can be easily moved; others are on-prem devices that are left alone to handle certain tasks.

This isn't my first reading about the struggles MacBook users have here. It is bizarre to me that Apple doesn't natively and reliably support closed+awake devices; it feels like they've dug in their heels and I can't imagine why.

I wrote a small caffeine-like macOS command-line utility to keep your MacBook awake when you close the lid.

This can be handy when you have a long running task active but need to close your MacBook – for example to change trains, head home from a café or commute to the office.